What the median doesn’t tell you about Inglis Classic

Cover image courtesy of Inglis

The Inglis Classic Yearling Sale is renowned as a trade sale where physical type matters most, and this was made clear in 2026 when the top eight lots were all by different stallions; representing a range of service fees.

The message from buyers, be they syndicators who on-sell to clients, or trainers looking for a racehorse, or breeze up sale buyers, is that a good physical type will sell well - and the stallion is only part of the picture.

A quartile analysis of the sale results can’t pick out individual ‘good types’, but it can show if vendor expectations align with buyer assessments.

Five year figures

The Inglis Classic Yearling Sale has changed format during the period of our analysis with 2022 and 2023 including a highway section, which was integrated into the main sale from 2024 onwards. However, the number of lots at the sale hasn’t changed aside from small annual fluctuations, so TTR included the highway lots into the five-year analysis.

The key indicator of stability is that the median has remained static at $70,000 for four of the five years, sliding up to $80,000 in 2022 only. In fact, 2022 was the best result for this sale in the time period with an $825,000 sale topper, a 92% clearance rate, a gross that hit over $73 million and an average over $107,000.

This year's gross lifted 6% on the year prior, thanks to a better clearance rate off a similar sized catalogue. The 2026 aggregate of $57.2 million was ahead of 2025 ($53.88 million) and 2024 ($55.38 million).

The sale topper in 2022 was Make A Call (Extreme Choice) who ran fourth in the G3 Breeders’ Plate on debut and placed in the G3 Black Opal Stakes at two. Gelded and on-sold through Inglis Digital for $70,000, he’s now the earner of over $310,000 and has won four races, most recently on February 7, the day before the 2026 Classic Yearling Sale began.

Since the 2022 sale, metrics have remained more stable albeit at a slightly lower average across the four years following 2022, and now 2026 has delivered the best results of the past four years. The clearance rate in 2026 also improved on the year before - lifting to 84% from 81%, with the inclusion of post auction sales.

The top priced lot has remained fairly static, averaging $624,000 across the last five years.

Table: A five year look at the changes across key metrics at the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale

Quadrant analysis of the sale

By breaking the sold prices from Classic into four quadrants, a deeper analysis can be done of the different sectors of the market. With 2022 being the best Classic sale in the past five years, any comparison between 2022 and 2026 might be found wanting a little, and this is certainly the case at the top end, where the average for the top 25% of lots sold fell 12% in this time period from $227,735 to $203,624.

However, compared to 2025, the top end average stayed static.

Quadrant two - the lots who were above the median but not in the top 25% - showed a significant gain by average from 2024 to 2025, and held steady in 2026 with an average price of $96,182, very similar to the overall sale average.

Quadrant three - the 25% of the market sitting just below the median - dipped in 2025 compared to 2024, but rebounded in 2026 to almost exactly its 2024 level, averaging $58,758.

The bottom quadrant told a stronger story. In 2026, its average rose to $28,799, matching the best result of the past five years, set in 2022.

Table: Five year quadrant analysis of the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale

In short, the top and middle of the market were largely steady from 2025 to 2026, while the bottom end showed a modest lift. An average of $28,799 in the bottom quadrant is still not a profitable position for most breeders. But it is an improvement on 2025, when that quartile averaged just $23,486 - a sign that demand at the lower end has at least firmed, even if margins remain tight, especially positive given the higher clearance rate.

As Inglis CEO Sebastian Hutch said at the close of the sale, “There is no disguising that there are challenges in the market, particularly in the bottom quartile, but we are working hard to facilitate the best market we possibly can for vendors and I’m proud that we have been able to deliver an improved market for vendors.”

Lift in individual buyers

Despite many buyers ending up in the buyers charts multiple times with different buying partnerships, the number of buyers has fallen sharply from 2022’s peak of 390 groups to 340 in 2026. However, this is a lift of ten groups on 2025’s figure of 330 buying groups, so perhaps this is the beginning of a resurgence?

The number of individual buyers who purchased one lot at Classic also lifted from 2025 (211) to 2026 (220), while the percentage of buying groups who only purchased one lot at Classic has remained fairly static at 65% with a low of 61% in 2023.

To better understand trainer activity, TTR separated buying partnerships and analysed the first name listed on the buyer’s sheet. At Inglis, the trainer is typically recorded first in any partnership, making it the most consistent way to identify where the horse might be headed.

On that measure, Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott Racing were the most active buyers, spending $1.89 million on ten yearlings.

Six were purchased in partnership with Kestrel Thoroughbreds. Two were bought alongside Kestrel Thoroughbreds, First Light Racing and Matt Houldsworth. The remaining two were secured in separate partnerships - one with Monarch Racing, P Moroney and C Bruggeman, and one with Kestrel Thoroughbreds and Kurrinda Bloodstock.

Table: Buying groups, using Inglis listed buyers, over past five years

The average number of vendors over the past five years at Classic is 74, which has essentially remained static year on year.

Greater stallion variety

This year’s catalogue offered buyers more variety with the progeny of 113 stallions, up on 107 in 2025.

In 2026, Extreme Choice was on top by average with three yearlings sold at $425,000, $360,000, and $100,000 for a sale leading average of $295,000.

Table: Sire trends over the past five years

And buyers appeared to like this variety here with the top eight lots all by different stallions - with strong variety also in the service fees for those stallions.

In 2023, the year these yearlings were conceived, these eight stallions ranged in fee from $27,500 including GST for Ghaiyyath (Ire) and Castelvecchio to $275,000 for Extreme Choice.

Table: Top eight lots in 2026