Written by Jessica Owers
Cover image courtesy of Bronwen Healy
On Tuesday night, Bloodstockauction.com hosted its unique Pre-Christmas Yearling Sale, which saw a 51-horse catalogue offered as part of the company’s larger online auction.
At the time of writing, results were still being tallied with negotiations ongoing for passed-in lots, but the bidding was lively throughout Tuesday’s event, many of the horse’s catalogued commanding up to 40 online bids.
Interest was heavy on Lot 7, a Frosted (USA) colt from the Woodman (USA) mare Clever Clogs (NZ). This youngster is a half-brother to the G1 Macau Gold Cup winner Golden Gunner (Black Minnaloushe {USA}), who also won the G1 Macau Star of the Sand S.
Lot 7 - Frosted (USA) x Clever Clogs (NZ) (colt) | Image courtesy of Bloodstockauction.com
Lot 7 was narrowly passed in at $24,500 with a $25,000 reserve. Negotiations for him are ongoing, along with a smart filly by Deep Field who is likely to top the sale by week’s end.
Lot 29, by Deep Field, got 29 bids on Tuesday evening with an undisclosed reserve, and she’s a daughter of Press Report (Written Tycoon), who was second in the G2 Silver Slipper and G2 Breeders’ Classic. Press Report was also third in the G3 Dark Jewel Classic and G3 Hawkesbury Crown.
Among the best of the sold horses, Lot 2 was a Cosmic Force filly from the General Nediym mare Bay Trixie. She attracted 39 bids and sold for $11,000.
Lot 2 - Cosmic Force x Bay Trixie (filly) | Image courtesy of Bloodstockauction.com
Lot 2 is a half-sister to the Listed Brian Crowley S.-placed The Tenor (Your Song) with a family that boasts the stakes winners California Zimbol (I Am Invincible) and From Within (Not A Single Doubt).
“We had a good number of passed-in horses sell after the auction, and that’s what often happens in these sales,” said Anthony Gafa, the director of Bloodstockauction.com. “That Deep Field filly is likely to top the sale at around $30,000, but these things are often not finalised until a few days after.
“In the sale’s aftermath, we had six horses sell after passing in, so the clearance rates and final results of sales like these often come a few days later for us.”
Anthony Gafa | Image courtesy of Bloodstockauction.com
This was the first Pre-Christmas Yearling Sale for Gafa’s Bloodstockauction.com. It was a concept he’d thought about launching a few years ago, but 2022 was the year it was realised.
“We’d thought about doing it two years ago,” he said, speaking to TDN AusNZ. “And, to be brutally honest, it was borne out of the frustrations of some of our vendors not necessarily missing out on a commercial sale, but more missing out on the sale they wanted to get into.
“Some vendors may have wanted to get into Classic, for example, or into Premier but they got into Classic instead. Those are just two examples, but our feedback was that vendors were either keeping their horses to race them or sending them to the breeze-ups.”
“...to be brutally honest, it (the Pre-Christmas Yearling Sale) was borne out of the frustrations of some of our vendors not necessarily missing out on a commercial sale, but more missing out on the sale they wanted to get into.” - Anthony Gafa
Gafa thought there was a good opening in the yearling market for a pre-Christmas auction, and he was correct because within a short space of time, he had a catalogue of 51 yearlings to offer.
“We only ever wanted to go live with 40 or 50 yearlings,” he said. “We easily could have had another 60 in the catalogue, but we never wanted 500 horses in it because we wanted to make sure that we could focus on getting horses sold, and that’s been the result. On top of those we sold on Tuesday night, we’ve sold a good number since.”
From little things…
The Pre-Christmas Yearling Sale had young horses by the likes of Merchant Navy, Reward For Effort, Epaulette, Lean Mean Machine and Needs Further. The spread of commercial sires was vast, and included some of the big names on the big farms alongside the smaller sires cutting their cloth in local districts.
The Bloodstockauction.com sale was an opportunity for the less-commercial progeny of good sires to be platformed and, in a market brimming with high-end headlines, it’s easy to forget that these sorts of sales are necessary.
The Bloodstockauction.com sale was an opportunity for the less-commercial progeny of good sires to be platformed and, in a market brimming with high-end headlines, it’s easy to forget that these sorts of sales are necessary.
“At one point on Tuesday, the Pre-Christmas Yearling Sale attracted more activity online for us than we’d had all year,” Bafa said. “So even though people are on holidays or they’re busy or away, they were still logging in to have a look to see what was going on.”
As far as the place that the sale has in the annual calendar, Gafa said it’s new territory.
“And we always knew that would be the case,” he said. “So it was more this year about getting the catalogue together and getting the lots sold, and that’s what we’re doing this week. But I had a number of vendors contact me to say how much they’ve appreciated it so I’m really happy with the way it’s gone.”
“At one point on Tuesday, the Pre-Christmas Yearling Sale attracted more activity online for us than we’d had all year.” - Anthony Gafa
As for the sale going forward, Bloodstockauction.com intends for the Pre-Christmas Yearling Sale to be a permanent fixture.
“We had concerns initially that the concept might be copied, so we kept our cards pretty close to our chests,” Gafa said. “Because of that we did a lot of the hard marketing in a very short space of time. But now, moving forward, we have every intention for the sale to be a permanent, pre-Christmas feature and we think it will grow accordingly.”
Some 36 years ago, Magic Millions had an idea that blossomed into something spectacular, so Gafa is entitled to think big with his corner of the bloodstock market.
