Seven things we learned on Day 2 of Inglis Easter: Winx smashes more records

Cover image courtesy of Inglis

At A Glance

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The Pierro-Winx filly broke the highest price yearling record selling for $10 million, with the previous record being $5million. Fourteen lots sold for $1million or more on a strong day of trading, making eighteen in total for the sale, compared to 26 to reach that figure in 2023.

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The median price stayed steady at $300,000 – the same as the first day of the sale – although the Winx filly pushed the day two average up to $491,190. The sale average was $429,786 (351 sold) compared to $386,971 (360 sold) last year.

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The clearance rate is currently 79 per cent, but if the same trend of horses being sold outside the ring continues overnight, then this may rise by tomorrow too.

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Aside from Woppitt Bloodstock who spent $10 million on one yearling, the highest spending buyer across both days of the sale was the China Horse Club / Newgate Farm / Go Bloodstock / Trilogy partnership group who spent $7.6million on ten yearlings. Dean Hawthorne Bloodstock spent $5.9 million on 11 yearlings. Hawthorne also led the buyers’ list for most yearlings purchased, equal with Queensland’s KPW Bloodstock who also purchased 11 yearlings (spending $4.56 million).

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Unsurprisingly Coolmore Stud led the vendors list with $27million worth of yearlings sold, however, with the Winx filly removed, they would still be the leading vendor with 31 other yearlings sold for $17.6million, ahead of Arrowfield Stud who sold 42 yearlings for $15.8million.

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Coolmore Stud were also the leading vendor by average price: $862,960 with the Winx filly and $568,225 without. The Chase came in second, selling four yearlings at an average price of $543,750, while Yarraman Park Stud sold 11 yearlings at an average price of $539,545.

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Zoustar led the sires list by aggregate with 27 yearlings sold for $18.7million at an average of $693,333 and a median of $550,000, edging out I Am Invincible whose 28 yearlings sold made $18.6million at an average of $666,964 and a median of $525,000.

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Across the two days of selling, the leading first season sire was Wootton Bassett with 22 yearlings sold for an average of $391,364.

#1 “Special” scenes unfold as Australian record smashed

Southern Hemisphere records were smashed in a matter of seconds when the first foal of freak mare Winx (Street Cry {Ire}) entered the The Inglis Riverside auditorium on Monday.

Debbie Kepitis’ Woppitt Bloodstock won the day, bidding $10million, allowing Kepitis and her family to own the filly outright.

To put the sale in perspective, it doubles the previous Australian record of $5million for the Redoute’s Choice half-brother to Black Caviar (Ex Helsinge) set in 2013.

The world record price for a yearling at auction remains the $US13.1million given for Seattle Dancer at Keeneland in 1985.

American John Stewart from Resolute Racing lived up to his pre-sale promise of wanting to secure the filly and after the bidding opened at $2million, it was he who pushed Kepitis to the eventual eight figure mark.

Stewart, on the phone to Inglis Managing Director Mark Webster, bid $7.5million and quickly countered the $8million reply with a $9million bid. But when Kepitis went to $10million, the American had no response.

The auditorium was filled to overflowing as an electric atmosphere greeted the record-breaking filly, who was led by Coolmore’s foaling manager Patrick Sheehan, a man who has been by the filly’s side from the day she was born.

“There was a lot of people engaged in this thing. It wasn’t a case of two people duking it out. There were a lot of people who wanted a part of this horse,” Inglis Bloodstock CEO Sebastian Hutch said.

Chris Waller, who guided Winx to her 25 Group 1 victories, was in a typically emotional mood as he watched the action unfold and then being anointed as the trainer of the Pierro filly.

He wasn’t surprised at the spectacular bidding, having been all too familiar with the aura that goes with anything to do with Winx.

“It was very special. I knew she was something that everybody wanted,” Waller said.

“I’m very emotional. That will never change.”

Asked what he thought of the filly himself, Waller confessed that he was “a bit biased!”

“I thought there were so many similarities to mum,” he said.

#2 Day 2 surges

Even without the presence of the $10 million Winx filly, the sale surged at an incredible rate on Monday.

Another 14 yearlings sold for seven figures or more, bringing the sale total to 18, as post-sale ring negotiations pushed Day 1’s clearance rate beyond the 80 per cent mark.

“This tends to happen a bit at this sale. Most sales tend to get stronger as they go on in a normal year,” Hutch said.

“This sale with the condensed nature only being two days, the first 100 lots tend to be a sighter for people. We got some fantastic results (in the first 100 lots), but the clearance rate for the first day is up past 80 per cent now.

“There’s an appetite to get deals done, which is a sign of a healthy market place.

“I would contend this is a good healthy market place. We’ve had no singularly dominant buyer, a good spread of buyers and this is how a functioning market place works.”

Hutch said “perspective is an important thing in the assessment of any market” and it was important to remember the industry was coming off “the two most lucrative years in the history of Australian bloodstock.”

“While the instinctive approach is to compare one year with the last year, to look at this in the context of a period of time, this is a really very healthy market,” he said.

The China Horse Club, Newgate, Go Bloodstock, Trilogy Syndicate opened the shoulders on Day 2 of the sale, securing a string of well-bred colts, headed by a $1.55 million Zoustar from Widden Stud.

In all, the group made 11 purchases for $9,165,000, making it second to only Debbie Kepitis’ Woppitt Bloodstock on the buyers list.

“We just thought there were some lovely colts in today. We bought some beautiful animals and hopefully they can gallop,” Newgate’s Henry Field said.

“It’s the same partnership. We’ve been together seven or eight years now and had so much success and we’re hoping more will come out of this sale.”

Rosemont Stud also got busy late in the session, signing on a joint ticket with Suman Hedge Bloodstock for a $1.2 million Extreme Choice colt from Newgate and a $1.1 million Snitzel colt from the North draft.

#3 Glass ceiling broken… twice

Coolmore Stud set new ground on Monday with the two highest priced fillies ever sold in Australia.

The $10 million Winx filly was followed less than two hours later by the I Am Invincible x Booker (Written Tycoon) filly, which sold to John Stewart’s Resolute Racing for $3 million.

It is expected Chris Waller will train the Booker filly, with Debbie Kepitis having confirmed earlier that he would also train the Winx filly.

It brought Resolute’s Easter tally to six, for a total spend of $5.44 million.

The previous record for a filly sold in Australia prior to this sale was $2.6 million.

Stewart had been the underbidder on the Winx filly, but had also taken a shine to the Booker filly when he visited Coolmore on his trip to Australia last month.

It gave Coolmore five individual million dollar yearlings at this sale, with a sixth added late in the session when a Justify (USA) colt made $1,300,000 to the bid of Guy Mulcaster. It cemented Coolmore’s place at the head of the vendor table by both average and aggregate.

Even without the Winx filly, Coolmore topped the vendor (by aggregate) list.

“One thing Dad (John) is very keen on is getting that leading vendor title,” Coolmore Australia’s Tom Magnier said.

“We have it this year and again, we can’t do this without the clients, without the support and most importantly we cannot do this without the people we have at Coolmore.

“The guys with the horses, the guys on the tractors doing the pastures, the people in the office. It’s just a massive team effort and I wouldn’t change our team at Coolmore Australia for anything.”

#4 Magical milestone for Segenhoe

Segenhoe Stud’s sensational sale season reached new heights when Lot 418 sold for $1.2million on Monday.

It gave the Hunter Valley farm a record 10th individual $1million yearling for 2024.

“It’s huge. Particularly for all our team,” Segenhoe’s Peter O’Brien said.

“The team we have on the farm has been with us a long time, which is particularly gratifying. To see how it makes them feel gives me a big lift.

“Ten this year is pretty special.

“We’re very fortunate to have clients like John Camilleri, Sheikh Khalifa, Chris and Jane Barham and then our own mares. Having the quality stock makes our job a whole lot easier.”

O’Brien said sales results are driven by racetrack results and that’s what is most important to the Segenhoe machine.

“We’ve had 15 individual stakes winners this current racing season and that’s purely on horses sold. There’s others we reared, that aren’t included in that,” he said.

“So particularly for our numbers; we have 70 yearlings a year in comparison to other farms. We are leading the black type premiership at the moment and we are currently 18 per cent stakes horses sold, which is extraordinary.

“The biggest driver is for me, the racetrack. People know they effectively have an extra eight per cent chance of having a black type performer buying out of Segenhoe.”

#5 Trio of elite stallions fight it out

A mere $70,000, over a staggering combined aggregate of $56 million, separated the top three Inglis Easter Yearling Sale sires.

Zoustar, I Am Invincible and Snitzel had less than 16 per cent of the average price of an Inglis Easter yearling splitting their individual aggregate totals, all rounding out at over $18.6 million each.

Zoustar finished the sale as leading sire of the trio by both aggregate and average, with the Widden Stud-based stallion delivering 27 sales for an average of $693,000, with 'Vinnie' selling 28 at an average of $667,000, and Snitzel sending off his 33 yearlings for an average of $518,000.

Gallery: Top three Inglis Easter Yearling Sale sires

The title for Zoustar ends the five-year reign by I Am Invincible on the leading sire award, after he secured it from Snitzel in 2019.

After the deeds of his magnificent daughter, Lot 391 who sold for $1 million, Pierro ended the sale as leading sire by average with 10 sold for $1.935 million average apiece. Another Coolmore sire, Justify (USA), rates an honourable mention also, selling eight yearlings for an average of $630,000.

#6 New Syndicate flying high with Hawthorne

Dean Hawthorne was beaten on a Zoustar colt on Sunday, but had enough firepower to secure one of Monday’s highest-priced lots, bidding $1.5 million for the Dundeel (NZ) colt from Tides (Fastnet Rock).

The colt was knocked down to Dean Hawthorne Bloodstock and Alpha Syndicate, New Zealand.

The same combination had bought colts by The Autumn Sun ($350,000) and So You Think (NZ) ($300,000) on Sunday.

"This is their first venture. We’re just finding our way along,” Hawthorne said of the Alpha Syndicate.

“The market is correcting a little bit, you've got to say that - that one didn't, but generally it is - so the timing might be right.”

While he conceded the appetite for colts might have cooled, Hawthorne pointed out that’s not the case for Group 1 winning colts off the track and that is the aim when buying horses like this colt.

“The fact of the matter is, the stallion market hasn’t slowed down. Those Group 1 winning horses … the competition from the major studs, there’s a premium on them,” he said.

“You’ve got to try and get a spread of colts and hope you can get one across the line.”

Hawthorne had fallen just short on the Zoustar x Fundamentalist colt on Sunday, missing out to Coolmore’s $1.9 million bid.

“We went $1.8 million on the Zoustar colt (on Sunday). We knew we were not going to beat Coolmore, but we made them pay,” he said.

“(But) I bought a cracking Dundeel colt, first lot in the ring this morning, reminded me of Super Seth and a bit of Militarize. Just that mould of horse that could come on in the autumn and run on at three.

“I was really happy to get him, he was one of my colts of the sale.”

The Dundeel (NZ) x Rosental (GB) (Pivotal {GB}) colt was offered by Cressfield and sold for $375,000.

After running “a bad third” on the two top priced fillies on Day 1, Hawthorne struck early on Monday to secure Widden Stud’s Zoustar x Secret Trail (Denman) filly for $950,000.

“The fillies, we’ve been strong on fillies, trying to restock the shelves a bit and buy these good fillies. We haven’t got many Zoustar fillies on our team,” he said.

“We had a few goes. I was on all those top fillies yesterday and it’s competitive. We ran a bad third (on the Prompt Response filly) and we were even a bad third on the Notting Hill filly. They were the top two for me and they made the top two money.

“It’s the norm, the top 20 fillies in the sale will make big money.”

#7 High Tide for famous family

The Shantha’s Choice family was responsible for another two yearlings that sold for seven figures on Monday, as Arrowfield Principal John Messara sets his sights on launching the pedigree in the northern hemisphere.

In the space of four lots, a Written Tycoon colt from The Broken Shore (Hussonet {USA}) sold to the China Horse Club, Newgate, Go Bloodstock, Trilogy Syndicate for $1.35 million, before one of the mare’s daughters went slightly better.

Lot 349, a Dundeel (NZ) colt from The Broken Shores’ Fastnet Rock daughter Tides, sold to Dean Hawthorne Bloodstock and the Alpha Syndicate (New Zealand) for $1.5 million.

The Broken Shore is a daughter of Shantha’s Choice, who’s son Redoute’s Choice re-wrote the sale record books from his Arrowfield base.

“It’s Redoute’s’ family and they keep throwing good horses,” Arrowfield Principal John Messara said.

“The Broken Shore has been sent to Europe and is in foal to Frankel northern time.

“We’re going to breed a few northern time horses to race in Europe and if they make it, they can come back here as stallions if they are colts.”

Messara revealed Arrowfield have “kept a piece” of the Tides colt.

“I think it’s Dundeel’s highest priced yearling. He’s at the zenith of his powers at the moment, hopefully he will go further, but what he did on the weekend was very, very good,” he said.

“The Written Tycoon colt was a nice horse, he’s a stallion prospect as well, so good luck to the buyers there.”

Top lots

Top buyers

Vendors by aggregate

Vendors by average (3 or more sold)

Sires by aggregate

Sires by average (3 or more sold)