Book 1 yearlings has Gunn targeting a Premier result

Cover image courtesy of Motree Thoroughbreds

Last year was the second time that Tasmanian Mandy Gunn’s Motree Thoroughbreds took a draft to the Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale, and she achieved a fairytale result when her Harry Angel (Ire) colt out of city-winning Exceed And Excel mare Arkiboum sold for $300,000 to Hong Kong trainer Ricky Yiu. She returns to the venue with two lots this year in the hopes of repeating the formula.

A recognition of quality

Gunn’s first Inglis Premier venture in 2024 was the result of outreach from Inglis, who encouraged her to bring a draft north for Victoria’s flagship sale.

“Inglis visited the farm and said we should consider sending some up for the Melbourne sale,” said Gunn.

Gunn loaded up three colts and a filly for the sale’s Book 2, and sold all four, including a $100,000 Tassort colt - now named Cape Reinga - who was bought by Waikato Bloodstock and has subsequently won his most recent two trials.

The Harry Angel colt that capped off her draft last year was her first to get into Book 1.

“It was just super,” Gunn said. “We have had one go quite well in each draft. First it was the Tassort colt, then last year this one for $300,000. That sort of thing keeps you coming back. It is nice to showcase our horses to a different audience as well.

“It has been terrific to make connections with buyers as well. This may only be my third year but I noticed last year that people came back and wanted to look at our draft again that had come and bought from us in the first year.”

This year, the two horses making the voyage from Tasmania to the mainland have both been accepted into Book 1, and Gunn is pleased with the recognition of what her stud produces.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she said.“Both of our horses are in Book 1 and they are both in good order. We will just have to wait and see what the buyers think of them.”

Gunn’s two offerings in 2026 are lot 80, a Rubick colt out of G3 Launceston Cup winner Glass Warrior (Glass Harmonium {Ire}), and Lot 222, a Brave Smash (Jpn) filly out of My Miss Pedrille (Lonhro).

“I bred the colt’s mother and she won the Launceston Cup for me,” Gunn said. The sharp Glass Warrior won five races for Gunn and over $440,000 in stakes. “This is her first foal. He’s a very big, strong colt. I bought the filly’s dam at the Sydney sales in foal to Brave Smash.”

Gunn paid just $30,000 for My Miss Pedrille - whose family has also produced I Am Invincible and G1 Queen Of The Turf Stakes victress Diamond Drille (Al Maher) - at the 2024 Inglis Australian Broodmare Sale, where she was offered by Yarraman Park Stud. She had been a fan of Brave Smash (Jpn) already, but it had been the mare’s page that had drawn her to bid in the first place.

“She’s a daughter of Mamzelle Pedrille and a half-sister to O’Lonhro,” said Gunn. “It was really more about the family than the service. This filly is a little small, being that the mare is quite big, but she’s a nice type.”

A fortuitous pedigree update has occurred since Gunn’s purchase thanks to My Miss Pedrille’s first foal Manhood (Headwater), who won the Listed Chief De Beers Quality in 2025.

Reflecting on an up and down Tasmanian sale

Gunn mostly sells her stock at the local Magic Millions Tasmanian Yearling Sale - run this year on the Monday of this week - and she was one of the vendors in 2026 that came out of the sale feeling pretty good about their results.

Motree finished the sale as second top vendor by aggregate and sold a top lot of $90,000 - Lot 34, a filly by Hanseatic, was bought by Tasmanian trainer Adam Trinder. The filly is a half-sister to Tough Romance (All Too Hard), who was sold by Gunn last year to the McEvoys. The colt has since won on debut at Pakenham before running in last weekend’s G1 Blue Diamond Stakes. The price equalled Gunn’s best price ever achieved at the sale.

In addition, Victorian trainer Greg Eurell secured Lot 37, a colt by Diatonic (Jpn), for $70,000.

Gallery: Motree Thoroughbreds' top lots at the 2026 Magic Millions Tasmanian Yearling Sale, images courtesy of Magic Millions

“It was very up and down,” is how Gunn qualified the sale. “We had some really good results, and then we had some less so. We actually only brought three home unsold out of 25 that we took to the sale. That’s a good clearance rate, but we did accept some prices that were lower than we had hoped to sell some of the horses for.

“We also sold three to Malaysia who will stay on the farm for the buyer until later in the year. The first year we were at Premier, we sold one to Malaysia and I believe he has won three times now.”

It is the same tale across most of the sale’s vendors, but Gunn did add that the results were far superior to the ones achieved in 2025, a year marred by declining turnover and a poor clearance rate. Metrics lifted across the board for the 2026 edition of the sale with the clearance rate continuing to improve in the days following the sale.

“It was certainly a better sale than last year,” Gunn said. “It was still hard to get those prices for the top lots, but on the whole, the results across the whole draft were better.”

Quick Thinker requires plenty of patience

Of the horses that Gunn struggled to sell, many were by one of Motree’s stallions in Quick Thinker, a G1 Australian Derby-winning son of So You Think (NZ). Gunn purchased the stallion from OTI Racing in 2022 for $350,000 after the stallion failed to make his reserve on Inglis Digital. His first crop of foals are now two, and Gunn is exercising patience while waiting for them to make their big break.

“I think the biggest problem for him is that everyone keeps advertising him as a Derby winner,” she said. “But they don’t put forward that he won the Ming Dynasty over 1400 metres first up as a 3-year-old. That’s a horse that is actually quite precocious.”

Even before that, Quick Thinker was a stakes winner in New Zealand as a juvenile, having won the Listed Champagne Stakes at Ellerslie at his second ever start. His win over the 1400 metres of the G3 Ming Dynasty was convincing, with a two-length margin back to the more experienced Aspect Ratio (Declaration Of War {USA}) in second.

“I rang (trainer) Andrew Forsman before I purchased him to ask him if he was an out and out stayer,” Gunn said. “And he told me that OTI was really keen to win the Derby, so they had trained him to win the Derby, but he was actually a much more precocious horse than that.”

Quick Thinker added the G2 Tulloch Stakes to his record before his Derby win, and returned to Randwick the following autumn to claim the G2 Chairman’s Quality to round out his wins. But it was that 1400-metre score that had Gunn doing the most amount of thinking.

His first crop of foals is only small, but she holds on to a hope that they might surprise a few people, judging by their father’s early ability. In the meantime, she is content that the stallion only serves a small book each year.

“I send a few mares to the mainland each year and I bought him mostly as a fallback for them,” said Gunn. “I wanted something quality for them, and he was affordable quality. He is not the most fertile stallion but I think we have figured out how to make him tick now. He doesn’t need to do too much for us. They are going to be a rare breed.

“All of his foals walk well at home, so it would be lovely if they could come out and run. They all seem so athletic, but it is a waiting game.”

Perhaps there is a sharp winner waiting in the wings for Quick Thinker in the next few months - if they can time their appearance right around the sales, then all is the better.