‘It’s becoming quite lucrative here’ - Magic Millions Perth Winter Sale carving its niche

Cover image courtesy of Racing and Wagering Western Australia

Definitions aren’t specific, but on the general consensus of remoteness, Perth in Western Australia is the most isolated city in the world. It’s closer to Jakarta than it is to Sydney, and, officially, there is no city of comparable size anywhere in the world that is as remote.

Arguably, this can make it tough going for Magic Millions, which runs the only bloodstock sales on the west coast of Australia. This Sunday, the company will host its annual Perth Winter Sale, broken into yearlings, broodmares and weanlings at its Swan Valley complex.

“Being so isolated, as we are over here, sometimes we’ve got to push and shove to get people to this sale,” said David Houston, Magic Millions’ WA manager. “Essentially, this is a local sale, and that’s understandable when you consider where we are in the country and how isolated we are.”

Patronage at Magic Millions’ Perth Yearling Sale in February has improved out of sight the last decade. Leaving aside the locked borders during COVID, the February sale has steadily attracted more and more attention from the east coast.

This year, among the sale’s top five buyers were Suman Hedge and Lloyd Kennewell, who propped up a strong local buying bench chasing lucrative Westspeed bonuses.

The Winter Sale has a different edge, as most breeding stock sales do, and given the geographical isolation of Perth and the much smaller population of racing participants, it first has to cater for its own before it ever considers catering for the east.

“This is not an expensive sale,” Houston said. “I’d love it to be a more expensive sale, but right now the horses are affordable and we’ve been well-supported this year with a quality catalogue by breeders.”

Across the three particular sessions this Sunday, there are 133 horses to sell; 65 yearlings, 12 broodmares and 33 weanlings.

Among the yearlings alone there are 35 individual sires represented, including locals Gingerbread Man, Oratorio, Playing God and War Chant (USA), but also Rubick, Street Boss (USA), Written By and Pride Of Dubai. Blue Point (Ire), who topped the February catalogue, is also among them.

The entire catalogue is sprinkled with east-coast influence, which has been a hot trend in Western Australian breeding for some time.

“There is opportunity here,” Houston said. “It’s just a matter of making the effort to look through them and taking that opportunity.”

Houston has been with Magic Millions in Perth for 11 years, and the Winter Sale was ongoing for many years before his arrival. It’s a Perth staple and a sale that the company is keen to grow, even with the competition presented by the online platforms all through the year.

“A physical sale is the best opportunity to get horses in front of the public,” Houston said. “I think you get a better gauge on a horse if you can see it in the flesh, and getting people together means they’re competing against each other. In my mind, there is a very important place for this sale in Perth at this time of year.

“And with the influx of stallions we’ve had here, and the broodmare band growing in Western Australia, we need a couple of opportunities throughout the year to sell. If we can grow this sale, particularly the weanling part of it, then there’s an outlet for breeders to get their horses out there. Getting the timing right is what we’re working towards.”

Western Australia has been pulling its weight for a long time in the ranks of good horses to emerge from the state. The most recent top example is Sheeza Belter (Gold Standard), who was plucked out of this city by Justin Warwick at the 2021 Magic Millions Perth Yearling Sale. Costing $50,000, she has won Group races for the Snowdens in Brisbane (including the G1 JJ Atkins S.) and Sydney.

The Brave Smash (Jpn) colt Brave Halo, raced by Sean and Jake Casey in Western Australia, ran a smart fourth to Little Brose (Per Incanto {USA}) in the G1 Blue Diamond S. earlier this year, while Amelia’s Jewel (Siyouni {Fr}) has proved, without argument, that brilliant stars emerge from the west on a regular basis.

As recently as Wednesday, news revealed that Racing and Wagering Western Australia (RWWA) was increasing industry funding once again by a further $11 million, making things in the west look pretty good right now.

“It’s becoming quite lucrative here,” Houston said. “The prizemoney is fantastic. Even those horses that I’ve been involved with the last few years have had a fantastic return on investment, and I’ve tried to sell that idea to people in the east.

“In fact, there was a yearling bought here during the February sale and there’s something like six or seven eastern-state trainers in that horse, who’s been left over here to race. If a horse is good enough, they can go elsewhere to race, as we’ve seen in the past and as we will see again in the future.”

Gems to be found

Not every bloodstock sale can reach the spidery girders of January on the Gold Coast or Easter in Sydney. The Perth Winter Sale on Sunday may post an average price of $20,000, which it did last year among its yearlings, but it will not discount the value of the sale overall

As a good example, the 2-year-old filly Paris Calling (Ducimus) emerged from this catalogue last year. As Lot 47, she was consigned by Alwyn Park and passed in, unwanted by all who gathered at the complex.

However, as racing tends to do, a good story emerged when Houston began sniffing around the passed-in lots the day after the sale. He contacted Alwyn Park, who still had no interest in the filly. Houston gathered a few people together, including Magic Millions auctioneer Grant Burns and former Magic Millions employee Jack Cripps, and they paid $5000 to take her home.

The filly was named ‘Paris Calling’ and she went into training with Trevor Andrews at Ascot Racecourse. In three starts, Paris Calling has won two races and been third in the other. Her earnings, $131,940, are right now over 26 times her purchase price.

“I had looked at that filly on the farm and thought her a nice type,” Houston said. “We took the opportunity to buy her because, in my mind, she was a very viable, good type of filly who was worth a throw at the stumps. To be totally honest, she could be a carnival filly at the end of the year.”

Paris Calling has become something of a pin-up girl around the Magic Millions office in Perth. There are plenty rueing the fact they’re not involved with her, but Grant Burns isn’t one of them. The Magic Millions auctioneer recalls the day he saw the filly on the farm.

“This is a sale that doesn’t have many horses in it, so there’s not much excuse for us not seeing all the horses in the catalogue,” he said, speaking to TDN AusNZ. “David and I had gone around and looked at them all, and she was one we both really liked. After she was passed in, and I think they wanted $15,000 for her, David rang me, asking if this was the one I really liked.

“At $5000, I told him he had to buy her. She was too nice a horse not to own, and we tease each other a bit because we’re all claiming that we’re the ones who found her, even Trevor Andrews (her trainer), who first set eyes on her when she walked into his stable after we bought her.”

Such is the fairytale of buying a good racehorse for half-nothing, and such is the potential of the Perth Winter Sale.

“It just shows you, you can find them anywhere,” Burns said.

Paris Calling isn’t the only story of that kind out of this sale. In 2014, the dual Group winner Man Booker (Discorsi) also graduated from this catalogue.

Man Booker was passed in at the Magic Millions Perth Yearling Sale earlier in the year, then sold to trainer Daniel Morton for $25,000 at the Winter Sale. The gelding won close to $1.2 million through eight stakes victories, including the G2 Western Australian Guineas and G3 Northerly S.

“There are a lot of reasons why horses don’t go to earlier sales,” Burns said. “The good horses are here, and I guarantee there’ll be a really good story out of this week.”

Catalogue stories

The catalogue on Sunday has many examples of horses that, for whatever reason, didn’t make it into a sale earlier this year. One such is Lot 18, a Rubick colt (the only Rubick in the sale) from the Written Tycoon mare Fiftyshadesofgrey, who raced in the east and was fourth at stakes level.

Lot 18 is a lovely horse, according to Burns, who would have been in the Perth sale in February had it not been for a horse-walker injury he sustained the day before heading to the sale.

“He’s a perfect example of a horse that was easily a six-figure animal in February, and he would have made $150,000,” Burns said. “He’ll be offered on Sunday and someone is going to get a significant discount on this horse, and they haven’t even had to keep him from February until June.”

Another is Lot 1 for Ridgeport Holdings, a Pride Of Dubai filly from the Bel Esprit mare All Cooped Up. In February, this filly would have been overshadowed for being undersized, but now, said Grant, she has furnished into a strapping yearling.

“There are certainly horses I’ve seen this week who I saw earlier in the year and they’ve gone on with things,” he said. “Time is an amazing thing, especially when it comes to horses.”

One of the obvious highlights of Sunday will be Lot 65, a chestnut colt on account of Willow Dale Farm. From More Aspen (USA) (More Than Ready {USA}), this colt is a half-brother to Australia’s latest juvenile winner, King Colorado (Kingman {GB}), who won the G1 JJ Atkins S.

There is a lot happening with this family. More Aspen, herself, will be offered next week at the Inglis Digital June (Late) Online Sale, so it will make for good theatre, watching what this colt may sell for.

“All I can encourage people to do is go and look,” Burns said. “Go and look at them all because there will be good horses here. By chance, if we hadn’t seen Paris Calling last year, we wouldn’t own her. Someone else would.”