Cover image courtesy of Inglis

This year's Inglis Easter Yearling sale was without the $10 million yearling, Quinceanera (Pierro) out of Champion mare Winx (Street Cry {Ire}) and given all other sales this year reflected the economic challenges, many industry participants went into the sale with some trepidation.

It would be difficult to find anyone who could have predicted the extraordinary result – a lift in all the metrics across the sale (except the aggregate unless you take out the Winx filly).

“Our team was very much determined to reward our vendors and reinforce the standing of this sale as definitively the best in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the best in the world, which is something I feel has been achieved emphatically,” CEO Sebastian Hutch said in an Inglis press release.

Table: Sale overview for last 5 years

Even with a small catalogue, and without the Winx filly, the aggregate topped $150 million for the first time since 2022. The average, median, and clearance rate all lifted as did the number of million dollar horses.

Participant numbers

One of the key drivers for a stronger market is a larger number of buyers. While the number of individual buyers fell from 2024, so did the number of lots, and the average number of horses purchased per buyers stayed static at 1.7 horses each. In 2025, KPW Bloodstock were the leading buyer by numbers with 10 yearlings bought.

In 2024, they were also the leading buyer with 11 purchases in conjunction with Chris Waller/Guy Mulcaster and Dean Hawthorne Bloodstock. Yulong were very active in 2023 leading the pack with 24 purchases, while in 2022, again the leading buyers took home 11 yearlings each (being Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott Racing along with Ciaron Maher).

Table: Buyer Numbers at Easter over 5 years

Quartile analysis

With growth across the whole market at Inglis Easter which has seen the average price rise from 18 per cent from $369,000 in 2021 to $448,000 in 2025, a quartile analysis shows where those rises have occurred across the sale. And even with a rise in the number of seven figure lots, there is plenty of depth at this sale with the lower quartiles showing the greatest rises.

Table: Quadrant analysis by year

The top end of the market – the highest priced 25 per cent of lots sold – has risen only 13 per cent in the past five years which is slower than the overall growth at this sale. Meanwhile the bottom 25 per cent of the catalogue has lifted by 29 per cent.

Perhaps some of this rise is due to a smaller, more select, catalogue, and of course none of these results take into account the individual profitability for breeders, but it is cause for hope in the strength of the middle of the yearling market across the board.

Table: Percentage Growth

Or it could be that 2021 – the second year of the COVID pandemic – was a slight outlier, as 2025’s lower quartile compares favourably to the figure achieved in 2022 in that sector. The lowest quartile is certainly the sector with most fluctuations in average across time, while the top 25 per cent has achieved steady year on year growth.

Colts vs Fillies

There’s an industry belief that fillies tend to sell better in weaker economic times, while colts tend to boom when buyers have confidence in the economy.

With the whole market rising 18 per cent since 2021, colts have only lifted 14 per cent, while fillies have risen 22 per cent in average price. Fillies have made up 44 per cent of horses sold over the last five years. Whether this demonstrates that fillies are more sought after at Easter recently, or if the industry is correct about fillies in tougher economic times, the data does point to a change in buyer behaviour in favour of fillies recently.

As a counter argument, of the 25 million dollar plus yearlings in 2025, 16 were colts and nine were fillies.

Table: Colts vs Fillies average over 5 years