Cover image courtesy of Magic Millions

The Magic Millions 2YOs In Training Sale is less than a week away, with 151 horses catalogued to sell on Tuesday. It’s a typically lively, Asian-centric sale each year, even if the buying climate looks a little different right now.

Magic Millions has a handful of Singapore buyers attending the sale, despite the imminent closure of Singapore racing next year. Macau, too, has grave concerns about the future of its racing model, and both jurisdictions have, in the past, been prolific shoppers on the Gold Coast at this time of year.

Nevertheless, Tuesday’s sale has enough going for it. David Chester, Magic Millions’ international sales director, told The Thoroughbred Report recently that it’s one of the strongest catalogues he can recall for this sale. He’s expecting a presence from Hong Kong, China, the Philippines and South Korea, alongside a health foundation of local interest.

The 2YOs In Training Sale comes a fortnight after Inglis’ Ready2Race Sale at Warwick Farm, which might prove a sign of things to come next Tuesday. Sebastian Hutch, Inglis’ CEO of bloodstock, admitted there had been challenges and, evidently, “supply is outstripping demand in certain parts of the market”.

The Ready2Race Sale grossed significantly lower than its 2022 counterpart, but that comparison is rubbery. What was conclusive was that the clearance rate was lower than normal, with 226 horses catalogued, 179 making it into the ring, of which 101 sold. That made for a clearance rate of just over 56 per cent.

However, both the average and median figures were up on 2022, and the top lot was a healthy $400,000, with a very strong buying presence from Hong Kong (27 lots). In fact, only New South Wales buyers bought more.

“I believe the clearance rate for a 2-year-old sale around the world is something like 65 per cent,” Hutch said in the aftermath of the Ready2Race Sale. “We’ve been blessed to be able to have these sales with good clearance rates over the last few years, but it (the 2023 sale) wasn’t anywhere near as strong as we would have liked it to be in terms of clearance rate.”

Hutch said the domestic market probably needed to be a tad stronger for the clearance figure to have reached previous sales, and it’s food for thought when it comes to everyone heading to the Gold Coast next week.

“It’s not going to be as easy as what it has been the last few years,” said Magic Millions Managing Director Barry Bowditch, speaking to The Thoroughbred Report. “We’ve lost Singapore and we’ve lost Macau, so there’s plenty of work to be done. We’ve had vendors reach out with their concerns, asking how our market’s going to go, and we’re letting them know we’re doing all we can do to make sure we’ve got a market to sell into.”

David Chester and Nicky Wong, the latter Magic Millions’ Asia business and sales manager, have been on the international beat for months for this sale. Bowditch has confidence that the international contingent will be typically active, and it often fills the lower price-points of the catalogue, with cheaper horses often heading to the Philippines, Malaysia and Korea.

“It’s important to lay foundations in a catalogue like this,” Bowditch said. “We need buyers at all levels in the market, and I think David and Nicky, and the team around them, have done a great job this year internationally. It’s the rest of the team’s position now to find some domestic market for the catalogue.”

By colume, this year’s 2YOs In Training catalogue is about the same (150 lots) as 2022 (140 lots). Last year’s top price was a very good $500,000 for a Toronado (Ire) colt who went the way of Hong Kong with Vicky Tang. The clearance rate edged over 81 per cent.

“We are marketing this year’s sale incredibly hard at not just the big end of town,” Bowditch said. “We’re finding pillars in the catalogue, which also means those lower-point buyers. Those are incredibly important in a sale like this.

“There is still a craving for good-quality horses, and those sold incredibly well at last week’s auction. So the market is there for the right product; it’s just ensuring a buyer is there for all the product, which is an auction house’s job.”

One sale, not two?

Dean Harvey’s Baystone Farm is one of the 29 vendors at next week’s sale on the Gold Coast. Harvey has three colts to bring up from Victoria from an original draft of eight, and one of them is particularly interesting.

Lot 93 is a Snitzel colt and, from the mare Rose Of Cimmaron (Bite The Bullet {USA}), he is a sharply bred half-sibling to the Fastnet Rock brothers Bull Point and Siege Of Quebec.

When you’ve got quality pickings like this, it’s inevitable that a vendor like Harvey would be nervous heading into Tuesday. Speaking to The Thoroughbred Report, he said clearance rates were on his mind, as they were on the minds of many fellow vendors after last week.

“Absolutely I’m concerned,” he said. “We need to sell horses and we need to be seen selling horses. We’ve gone through periods where clearance rates were in the 90s at yearlings sales, but at the moment, with the economy as it is, that’s dropped somewhat and it’s to be expected.”

Baystone Farm is a horse trader. Only last week, Harvey coughed up $150,000 for the 6-year-old Group 1-winning gelding Western Empire (NZ) (Iffraaj {GB}) on Inglis Digital. From pinhooks to tried horses and broodmares, he is working the market.

He said the breeze-up sales were evolving in Australia into something significant, something much more these days than a last resort for unwanted yearlings. Specific targeting of these sales is producing good results, but Harvey is also aware of their challenges.

“The clearance rate last week (at Riverside) wasn’t great, and I’m sure that’s something the sales companies will talk about in terms of having two sales and whether somehow we can combine them,” Harvey said. “I’m not sure how that could be done, but in the future could there be one Australian sale, like there is one New Zealand sale?

“In my opinion, it would help buyers, vendors and the sales companies having everything in the one spot. I’m not sure how it would work, but I think we can throw the ball up in the air and have a chat about it.”

In Harvey’s opinion, one sale in one location would improve overall logistics. For example, there is a two-week gap between Inglis’ sale and Magic Millions’, so the Asian buyers have to fly in, potentially fly home and then fly back again within days. Breeze-ups are spread all over the place between the two companies, from Warwick Farm, Hawkesbury and Seymour to the Gold Coast and Taupo, New Zealand.

“It’s been spoken about very loosely,” Harvey said. “You’re always trying to improve things. It’s something that’s been thrown out a couple of times, and especially if the clearance rates could be improved a bit.”

One for the colts syndicates?

Lot 93, Harvey’s Snitzel colt, is one of those in the catalogue that was bought as a specific 2-year-old pinhook. He is a handsome type, with two white socks and a pretty blaze.

He is nominated for the Magic Millions Race Series, the Golden Slipper and the Blue Diamond, and he has a very ‘happening’ page. It features Sheamus Mills’ smart filly Charm Stone (I Am Invincible), as well as the siblings Criterion (NZ), Comin’ Through (Fastnet Rock) and Varenna Miss (Redoute’s Choice). All of these are close up on the page.

Harvey purchased this colt with Malua Bloodstock from Arrowfield Stud for $375,000 at this year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale. It wasn’t a cheap purchase and he knows it, and it puts a little bit of pressure on Lot 93 to achieve a good price on Tuesday.

“It’s a risky play, admittedly,” Harvey said. “But we back our judgement. Paying $375,000 for a colt and then reoffering him as a pinhook, that sort of thing is not done as much from the yearling sales into the 2-year-old sales as it is from the weanling to the yearling sales.

“This colt is a very good horse. I bid on him at the Magic Millions thinking the stallion syndicates would just roll me over. I wasn’t at all confident that I was going to be able to buy him, so I was pretty chuffed when I did buy him.”

Lot 93 is yet to post a breeze-up time. He will do that on Friday at the last of the sale’s galloping sessions at the Gold Coast Turf Club. However, he is race ready because he has been in the stable of Leon and Troy Corstens and, last Friday at Flemington, he won Heat 5 of the morning’s jump-outs over 800 metres.

In fact, Lot 102, Baystone’s other colt in the sale, a son of Brazen Beau, did the same, comfortably winning Heat 11 the same morning.

“Both of them were expensive yearlings,” Harvey said. He paid $200,000 to Yarraman Park for the Brazen Beau colt at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale this year. The colt features Dora Maar (Royal Academy {USA}) as his third dam.

“We pay up for really nice horses, ones we think will suit early careers. These two have both done that. They’ve both won trials and so we’ve put that extra layer on them. On top of them breezing well, buyers can see them over 800 metres in race conditions, and that’s an advantage that we’ve got next week. They’re both really nice, good-quality horses.”

Lot 93 and Lot 102 are the two Baystone-owned colts in the draft. The other is Lot 89, a Pariah colt owned by Harvey’s good friend Mick Gibson.

Harvey is hopeful that the Snitzel colt, in particular, who has a sire’s pedigree if nothing else, might steal the attention of any of the colts syndicates that might be playing next week. He said the horse is a lovely animal with a good brain and better action.

“Buying a Snitzel colt with that sort of pedigree, with a trial in front of their noses, the stallion syndicates might look,” he said. “I’m not saying they’re buying at this sale next week, but they have to look. If they see a colt like that with a pedigree like that, with his price-tag, and he’s won a Flemington trial, it will make them at least look, you’d have to think.”

Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything

Ozzie Kheir is an incredibly successful businessman. He has made his millions in property, specifically at the helm of the family-owned Resimax Group.

A self-described ‘workaholic’, Kheir needed an outlet, something to take his mind off work, so about a decade ago, with some encouragement from friends, he turned to racing.

Given his achievements in his professional life, it comes as no surprise that Kheir has become one of Australia’s biggest and most successful owners. He has won most of Australia’s big races. He has two Caulfield Cups, with Verry Elleegant (NZ) (Zed {NZ}) in 2020 and Incentivise (Shamus Award) in 2021, and two Melbourne Cups - Protectionist (Ger) in 2014 and Verry Elleegant in 2021. He scaled The Everest with Yes Yes Yes in 2019, and the following year, Tagaloa handed Kheir a maiden Blue Diamond S. victory, before Sir Dragonet (Ire) (Camelot {GB}) bested his rivals in the Cox Plate. Then there’s Hitotsu, who, had it not been for injury, could have been anything. During his fledgling career, he won the G1 Victoria Derby, G1 Australian Guineas and G1 ATC Australian Derby.

Gallery: Some of the horses Kheir has enjoyed elite-level success with, images courtesy of The Image Is Everything

Kheir loves the thrill of winning big races and is always on the hunt for the next star. With that in mind, he recently partnered with Sheikh Fahad bin Abdullah Al-Thani’s global racing and bloodstock giant Qatar Racing, and on Saturday, their talented entire, the Joseph O’Brien-trained Valiant King (GB) (Roaring Lion {USA}), lines up in the $5 million G1 Caulfield Cup.

During this year’s Royal Ascot Carnival, Kheir and some fellow owners bought into Qatar Racing’s Buckaroo (GB) (Fastnet Rock), Saint George (GB) (Roaring Lion {USA}) and Valiant King.

“The relationship with Qatar Racing is a growing one,” Kheir told The Thoroughbred Report.

“They’ve been great to deal with and hopefully we can enjoy some success together. We race a few horses overseas with them and vice versa, they will have a few horses racing with us here in Australia. It’s exciting.”

Valiant King is beautifully bred. A son of the brilliant four-time Group 1 winner Roaring Lion (USA), who sadly died from colic in 2019, he is from the winning Candy Ride (Arg) mare Assembly (USA) and she is a half-sister to the Listed winner Seismic Wave (USA) (Tapit {USA}) and the stakes performers Bugle Major (USA) (Mizzen Mast {USA}) and Teletext (USA). Other stakes winners on his page include Newsletter (Ire) (Sir Percy {GB}) and Verbal (USA) (Flintshire {GB}), while his fourth dam Euphonic (USA) (The Minstrel {Can}) is a half-sister to the great Danehill (USA).

The 4-year-old boasts one win and four minor placings from seven starts, and two starts ago, he placed second behind the Melbourne Cup favourite Vauban (Fr) (Galiway {GB}) in the G3 Ballyroan S. at Naas.

“Initially, we were attracted to his form, and his racing credentials were on the improve,” Kheir explained. “He was only lightly raced, his page was full of quality and he showed a really good turn of foot, so we were very keen on getting him. The form around him was good and I just thought he was a horse that would continue to improve over time.

“We looked at him after his second start (at the Curragh in August, 2022) and then we bought into him after his third start (after running second at Royal Ascot).

“He’ll only have a light preparation this year and we hope he improves next year.”

A stallion in waiting?

A career at stud beckons if Valiant King can win a feature race, but Kheir believes that opportunity is more likely to be in the Northern Hemisphere, if at all.

“He’s very well bred, so potentially that is an option, but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge; he’s got to do it on the track first, he hasn’t won a stakes race as yet,” said Kheir. “If we can get there, then great, and even if we do, I’m not sure if that would be in Australia, it might be overseas.

“I think he would have to win over 10 furlongs (2000 metres) to be considered for a life at stud in Australia. Again, at this stage, he’s a racehorse for us. Hopefully, he can get there in time, but for now, it’s all about building his profile.”

Kheir is no stranger to being a shareholder in high-class stallions. He has an interest in Coolmore’s Yes Yes Yes, as well as the Yulong Stud resident Tagaloa and the triple Group 1 winner Hitotsu, who is a recent addition to the Arrowfield Stud roster.

“That part of it excites me and I really enjoy it,” Kheir said.

“I think that’s most people’s goal, to make a stallion and see their progeny hit the track. If they do find a good home at stud, it means they have been successful.

“We’ve had a bit of success with those three horses and now we hope they can make their mark at stud. We will see how we go.”

Caulfield Cup prospects

Valiant King is one of two runners Kheir has in Saturday’s Caulfield Cup, with stablemate Soulcombe (GB) (Frankel {GB}) also to run for the $3 million winner’s cheque.

“Valiant King has sneaked into the field. We weren’t sure he would get a run. He’s only got 50kg, which is a touch less than what I thought he would get, we’ve locked in Jamie Kah and we’re very happy to have her. He travelled over here really well and we’ve drawn barrier one, which I don’t mind,” Kheir remarked.

“He’ll put himself right up there and with 50kg on his back he’ll get his chance.”

“Soulcombe couldn’t be going better. He gets out to a trip where, in the past, we would have thought that’s when he would be getting warm; we never thought he would be competitive until we got him to 2400 metres, so the fact he’s getting there now is exciting.

“To see what he did in the Underwood and the Turnbull, he’s been very impressive, and his work on Tuesday on the course proper at Caulfield was very good. We’re very happy.”

Cover image courtesy of Magic Millions

One of the few benefits to the bloodstock world of the COVID pandemic is that we have emerged with a new industry standard of pre-sale information. Vendors are now well-accustomed to producing videos and pictures ahead of yearling sales because for a period, that was all many buyers had to rely on as restrictions limited in-person inspections.

Whilst prospective yearling buyers are able to ask for ‘just another walk please’, a repeat performance is not something buyers can request at a breeze-up sale, for obvious reasons.

Hence, breeze-up videos have long been available to buyers, who can watch and rewatch as they look for clues of race potential beyond simply the final-furlong time achieved.

Those with the resources are also able to perform any kind of analysis on the footage that they wish, and it’s no secret that multiple parties have been offering tech-based analyses of breeze-ups for some time.

Now, ahead of their 2023 Gold Coast 2YOs In Training Sale, Magic Millions are the first sales company in the world to offer free stride data alongside the traditional breeze-up footage.

Was it only a matter of time? And, if so, does this mean we are seeing the emergence of what will shortly be another level of industry norm?

“We're probably the guinea pig,” admitted Magic Millions Managing Director Barry Bowditch. “But, I think the market’s ripe right now for what we’re doing.

“Whether you look at parade videos and photos or any data or any information we give now, it's a whole lot better than what it was five years ago, isn't it?

“I think we're going to a whole new level this year, and I'm very content that we’re providing buyers with as much information as we possibly can right now and we’re looking forward to next week.”

The new level means that, for the first time, each lot in the 116-strong catalogue now has its own personal report, which gives a breakdown of average speed, top speed, stride frequency and stride length over 600 metres, on top of the usual sectional times.

Presented via two charts, prospective buyers can see easily how a horse’s speed changed throughout each of the three furlongs, and how that is reflected in the stride length and frequency too.

“The best thing about this is that the interpretation of it is up to the individual,” Bowditch continued. “Whether that be the buyer or the seller, how they want to use it to sell the horse or how they want to use it to buy the horse is up to them.

“Whether you're buying a sprinter or a stayer, a horse that's ready to go right now or one that needs a bit of time, it gives everyone the same insight.

“It gives them extra guidance to make an informed decision, and gives them confidence whether they're speccing or whether they're buying on behalf of other clients, that little bit more information means they can make the best decision they possibly can.”

With the sale only a matter of days away, the shiny new reports have been live on the Magic Millions website for some time now, and buyers have had plenty of time to digest all the information.

Aware ahead of the project that there’s always inherent risks with such an innovation, Bowditch reports that the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

“It's been a good talking point,” he said. “Obviously, we're hustling buyers as usual, and working hard to ensure we've got as many people that are engaged in the sale as we possibly can.

“So this is a tool for us not only to use when people speak to us, for us to push the sale, but also for people that can't make it to the sale.

“If you're sitting at home, you see the video, you see the photo, you see the breeze-up and you've now got this data. I think you've never seen a sale of its kind where you've got every little bit of information provided to you.

“If I were a buyer sitting at home, I'd feel like I've got a lot of confidence. If I were an owner sitting at home and I had my agent or my trainer or whoever else at the sale, I’d feel as if I can make an informed opinion with that information online as well.”

Putting it together

As Bowditch was keen to stress, the key to this project being a success is that Magic Millions must remain impartial. At its heart, it’s about giving participants more information, but that entails the accompanying imperative of accuracy and reliability to ensure a level playing field.

Hence, the project has been well over a year in the making. With Bowditch giving the green light at various stages, designing, testing and implementing a system brought together by a group of Magic Millions employees, including CIO Leigh Spiegel and Cassandra Simmonds, who looks after Race Series and CRM Systems.

Working closely with Racing Queensland, Simmonds has been essential to the whole process.

“When we were planning for last year's present sale, we were aware that Racing Queensland was planning to implement sectional timing across racetracks,” she told TTR AusNZ.

“They had them at Eagle Farm and Doomben, and they were looking to implement it at Gold Coast and Ipswich and Sunshine Coast and through other tracks. So, when we heard that, we wanted to see if we could use it for the breeze-ups.

“We trialled it for the Queensland breeze-ups last year only, but we didn't publish the data because it's important for integrity that the same information is available for all lots for buyers to assess.”

Bringing in tripleSdata, who provide the technology to Racing Queensland, Magic Millions were able to expand the service across all the breeze-up locations. The beam-cutting timing systems of old are now replaced by chips in saddle cloths.

“We knew that if we're going to go to this, we had to use something that was accepted and well tested. So, these are the same chips that go in the saddle cloths on Everest Day, on Melbourne Cup Day, on Magic Millions Day,” Simmonds explained.

“It's become an industry standard across the major racing jurisdictions, and I believe it's going to New Zealand and it's already used in Singapore and Malaysia.”

Whilst the average punter might only see sectional times on raceday, the chips have always had the capacity to provide the data that Magic Millions is now making public. But, that doesn’t mean that the process has been a total breeze…

“Our Chief Information Officer, Leigh, had to work with tripleSdata closely for mobile solutions at Newcastle and Seymour, because the technology isn’t installed permanently there like it is at other tracks.

“They sent someone down and they put receivers into the track and did some testing beforehand and on the morning of the breeze-up, so that we could make sure that all of the horses breezing-up had the same data.”

Emphasising that the data sets are designed to be complementary, Simmonds reports that prospective buyers have been viewing it as just that, as they seek to make informed decisions.

“Essentially, it provides a greater context of the type of horse you're buying,” she said. “Rather than just looking at something by eye, this gives you some science to say, ‘Why is this horse going faster? Is its stride rate quickening or is it lengthening or is it doing both?’

“Then you can look at the pedigree and obviously at the physical of the horse and where it's at in the stage of its development and its size and scope.

“The other thing we're doing, which we haven't done before, is timing from 600 metres out, where, traditionally, everybody publishes the last 200 metre section in isolation.”

Even this simple ‘expansion’ of information beyond the final furlong should be a huge help to buyers and sellers alike, Simmonds pressed, as it all adds to the context around each performance.

However, Magic Millions hasn’t given buyers much guidance on how to use the data. This is very much a deliberate move, Simmonds explained, as finding fast horses remains a puzzle with a sometimes unintelligible solution.

Cover image courtesy of Sportpix

It’s been a long time since any horse won the Caulfield Cup-Melbourne Cup double, a pairing that has, for over a century, lined the dreams of the devout racegoer.

Since 1879, which was the year of the first Caulfield Cup, only 11 horses have managed the double, and the list is exclusive. It includes Poseidon in 1906, Rising Fast (NZ) (Alonzo {GB}) in 1955, and Let’s Elope (NZ) (Nassipour {USA}) in 1991, among others.

Whipping in the list is the self-important mare Ethereal, who won the Cups double in 2001. She was a remarkable thing, trained by then New Zealand resident Sheila Laxon to over $4 million in prizemoney and a stakes haul that included the G1 The BMW, G1 Queensland Oaks and the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups, all in 2001.

Laxon recalls easily “the elite little thing that she was. She was terribly important to herself and she did what she wanted to do. You just tagged along in an attempt to get what you wanted out of her.”

Ethereal ran into such horses as Northerly (Serheed {USA}), Sky Heights (NZ) (Zabeel {NZ}) and Sunline (NZ) (Desert Sun {GB}) during her career. In the Melbourne Cup, she got home on wits alone, but her victory was critical to history because Laxon became the first woman to train a Melbourne Cup winner. To this day, Gai Waterhouse is the only other.

Laxon was hanging on the fence the day Ethereal was named, and it was her suggestion that the Rhythm (USA) filly be given that name. She still credits the horse with “the most incredible of brains”.

“It was as her name suggested,” the trainer said, “that she was sent from the heavens.”

Ethereal is 26 years old today, whiling away her time in retirement at Pencarrow Stud, where she was bred and born and to whom she has belonged all her life.

She was born at Pencarrow in 1997 from a family that the farm had long invested in. Her second dam, Richebourg (NZ), was a daughter of Vice Regal (NZ) who had won the 1984 G3 Tranquil Star S., and this was the start of the family at Pencarrow.

Rhythm, a son of Mr Prospector (USA), had been standing up the country at Cambridge Stud, and his union with Richebourg’s daughter, the outstanding four-time Group winner Romanee Conti (NZ) (Sir Tristram {Ire}), resulted in Ethereal on November 16, 1997.

Horses like this mare are rare today. It seems like they are getting on or passing on, like the Triple Crown-winning Burst (Marauding {NZ}), who died in June last year at the age of 31. At Pencarrow Stud, Ethereal is pushing a similar vintage. So too Makybe Diva (GB) (Desert King {GB}), who is 25.

The Ethereal S. has been ongoing at Caulfield since 2010 and is a Group race for 3-year-old fillies. Fittingly, its most famous of winners has been Verry Elleegant (NZ) (Zed {NZ}), who can only hope for a life as long and as lovely as the determined little thing that is Ethereal.