Many hands make a good first season sire

Cover image courtesy of Darley

The Inglis Premier Yearling Sale represents more than a simple sale; it is the cresting wave of the sale season’s flow that serves as a midpoint for vendors and buyers alike. The market has gotten a handle on what is available and what stallions are in the highest demand, and for those standing and selling the progeny of first season sires, they start to get a picture of how in demand their stock is.

Eleven first season sires have stock available at Inglis Premier, and by now, it becomes abundantly clear that the right support for a young stallion is not just in the breeding shed, but with who ends up with their first crop to train.

Always in demand

It was always anticipated that the first progeny of nine-time Group 1 winner Anamoe were going to be in hot demand, and that belief was vindicated at the beginning of the season with the stallion recording his first million dollar lot at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale. Widden Stud bred and sold the seven-figure yearling, and at the end of the first day of selling in Melbourne, they again have sold the stallion’s top lot.

Within the first hour of proceedings at the Oaklands sales complex on Sunday, Lot 27 was knocked down to Archibald Racing, Kia Ora Stud, and William Johnson Bloodstock (FBAA) for $320,000 - a price that wouldn’t be topped for Anamoe for the rest of the day. The colt was one of three Anamoes purchased by Annabel and Rob Archibald at the sale's opening day.

The colt is a son of Medaglia D’Oro (USA) mare Eleusa, a daughter of four-time Group 1 winner Divine Madonna (Hurricane Sky {USA}) and a half-sister to Listed winner Maternal (Street Cry {Ire}) and Deity (Exceed And Excel), the dam of Godolphin’s current sprint star Tentyris (Street Boss {USA}).

“It was obviously a good result,” said Matt Comerford, Nominations, Sales and Client Relations at Widden Stud. “The family is pretty active at the moment with Tentyris and Baraqiel.”

The colt shares his third dam with G1 Moir Stakes winner Baraqiel (Snitzel) and G1 Australian Oaks victress Autumn Angel (The Autumn Sun).

“It was early in the sale, so the market was likely still getting going, but it was a pleasing result. There was good competition in the bidding. The middle market today has been quite strong, and there has been good activity on the lower end as well.”

Widden Stud took a breeding right in Godolphin’s champion when he was retired to stud, and are starting to be rewarded for shrewd mating choices made in 2023. And it isn’t as if those choices came cheaply; Anamoe commanded a fee of $121,000 inc GST in his first season.

“We thought he was a good first season play (for Eleusa), and obviously he has sold incredibly well,” said Comerford. “All in all, we identified him as being a good sire prospect and have supported him with a few mares each year. He has gotten the results in the sales ring, now he has to get them on the track.”

Comerford noted that while the market seemed to strongly support the stallion, there wasn’t necessarily a set type to the horse he was producing just yet.

“They (Anamoe offspring) have all been quite a mixed bunch of horses,” he said. “They aren’t a super consistent type of yearling, in all fairness, but the market has gravitated to them. No doubt there's a lot of pressure on him to live up to the hype of what he was as a racehorse himself.”

It is never too early to be thinking about the first weekend of October, after all.

Support at both ends

Only one yearling by Champion 2YO Colt Daumier was offered on the first day of Inglis Premier, and that colt - Lot 71 - found a home with Lindsay Park Racing and Dean Hawthorne Bloodstock (BAFNZ) to the tune of $90,000. Twin Hills Stud proprietor and breeder of the colt, Olly Tait, was pleased with the result in more ways than one.

The colt is the fifth foal out of Frictional (Snitzel), an unraced daughter of dual Group 1 winner Miss Match (Arg) (Indygo Shiner {USA}) purchased by Tait for $105,000 from an Inglis Digital auction in 2022. Frictional’s full sister Bandol has so far produced three winners, including G3 Blue Diamond Prelude (colts & geldings) runner-up Katsumi Orochi (Maurice {Jpn}). Less than a fortnight ago, Bandol’s 2-year-old Wolf Gap (Palace Pier {GB}) became the third when winning at Warwick Farm.

Frictional was a strategic purchase for her strong pedigree, as Tait understands that every young stallion needs the highest quality mares he can have access to in order to have the opportunity to succeed.

“The potential upside of a stallion is so great that you invest a lot into it,” he said. “When you are standing a stallion, especially one starting out, you try to give him as nice a mare as you possibly can. This is a nice young mare out of a Group 1 winner, by Snitzel who is a Champion Sire and a very good broodmare sire. That gives Daumier as good an opportunity as we can give him.

“It all takes a very long time to show results. You have to acquire the stallion in the first place, then you have to bring him the mares, and then you take his offspring to the sales and you are hoping that they do well both there and on the track, and that will bring the stallion even better mares. Of course, this colt has gone to Lindsay Park, which gives Daumier a great chance.

“He is a beautiful colt. Great action, great hindquarter, very sensible.”

Being a G1 Blue Diamond Stakes winner who ran fourth in the G1 Golden Slipper Stakes, it makes sense to expect that Daumier’s stock will be early, and Tait is gratified that they have garnered the interest of one of the country’s premier juvenile training operations.

“It’s a very speedy pedigree,” he said. “It’s in the hands of the Hayeses now, but hopefully he will be a really good 2-year-old. It's both a great opportunity for the stallion and a great endorsement for what he's producing.”

Daumier has stood his first three seasons at stud at the much more modest fee of $16,500 inc GST, and thus Tait has had realistic expectations for his sales ring results.

“I think his first yearlings have been very well received,” said Tait. “He had a colt make $200,000 at Inglis Classic and he had a colt make $110,000 on the Gold Coast, all off of a $16,500 service fee, so we are very pleased.

“I am buoyed by the stock that he is producing. They all look sharp, and they've got good hips, and they've got great temperaments. It's in his hands to a certain extent what he produces, but you've got to do what you can to help young stallions by sending them good mares, and hopefully then getting them into good stables.”

Frictional visited fellow Twin Hills resident Peltzer in 2025, but Tait has been encouraged by the quality of her Daumier offspring, who is the third foal the mare has produced at Twin Hills.

“He is by far the nicest type she has had,” he said. “Sometimes I quip to people that she’s just been waiting to go to Daumier.”

Validation of the plan

Tasmanian David Whishaw’s Armidale Stud brought two colts to the Inglis Premier sale, and both sold on the first day, each making $120,000. Lot 98 in Armidale’s mainland draft was a son of Widden Stud first season sire Jacquinot, and he was bought by Ciaron Maher Bloodstock, an endorsement that Whishaw was pleased to receive.

“We are in the game of breeding good racehorses and trying to establish long-term relationships with clients,” he said. “It’s the first time a horse of ours has ended up in Ciaron Maher’s stable, which is a real positive.”

The colt commanded the highest price of four Jacquinot progeny sold on Sunday, but it wasn’t quite the heady heights provided by some of the other sales. Saying that, Whishaw was keen to press that they didn’t need to get a sale topper to be a happy vendor at the end of the day.

“He's found his mark,” Whishaw said. “I thought he potentially could have bought a bit more than he did, but he's been purchased by a good stable and there were certainly a lot of inspections for him. So I think Inglis did their job to get the buyers there, so we are happy enough with the result, that's for sure.

“And we are in it for the long game. Hopefully this time next year, he is running around in one of the earlier 2-year-old races. We have a nice Toronado colt out of the mare, so hopefully this one can provide a nice pedigree update and we can realise a little bit more at next year’s sale.”

The colt is the second foal of seven-time winner Hela (Night Of Thunder {Ire}), who counts the Listed Strutt Stakes amongst her victories and is a half-sister to 14-time winner and G3 Hobart Cup victress Toorak Affair (Toorak Toff). Further back in the family is G2 Rose Of Kingston Stakes winner Miraval Rose (Grunt {NZ}) and Graded stakes-winning sire Chapel Royal (USA).

Armidale brought Hela’s first foal, a St Mark’s Basilica (Fr) filly, to Inglis Premier last year, where she was sold to Star Thoroughbreds and Randwick Bloodstock Agency (FBAA) for $220,000. Named Contarini, she is in the stable of Chris Waller.

Choosing dual Group 1 winner Jacquinot as Hela’s second mating was governed by many factors, amongst them a matter of appeal to the Victorian buying bench.

“We put a lot of work into our matings,” said Whishaw. “I liked the pedigree cross a lot. Jacquinot suited the mare on pedigree very well, and he was a first season sire who had raced in Victoria where a largest percentage of our buying bench is. Plus, he was at the right price point.”

Jacquinot opened his career at stud at a fee of $33,000 inc GST, and Whishaw has to weigh up the price as much as anything else when sending mares up to the mainland to breed. Armidale Stud have heavily supported their local Magic Millions Tasmanian Yearling Sale in recent years, and Whishaw understands that, while the sale’s quality has increased, they cannot have expectations on the level of the eastern states’ upper market.

“We have had a presence at Premier for a long time, and we certainly want to maintain that,” he said. “We've supported the Tasmanian sale more heavily in the last couple of years because we see the importance in doing that to ensure that sale has some longevity and there's enough variation in the stock down there to ensure some mainland buyers will come down.

“But he was just a standout physical colt. I'm certain he would have sold very well in Tassie as well, but we certainly wanted to expose a couple of colts to keep our presence in Victoria and we thought he was a particularly good physical. The first foal is with Chris Waller, so the quality of this mare’s produce was validated by Ciaron Maher snapping him up.”

Like Tait, Whishaw acknowledges the importance of ensuring the results happen - for mares and stallions - on the track as well as in the ring.

“He goes to one of the leading trainers in Australia which will give the mare every chance,” Whishaw said. “We work hard to try and turn our young mares into long-term members of our broodmare herd. It is a project to get them off the ground, so this exposure for them helps.”

The other colt offered by Armidale was by Toronado (Ire), and sold to breeze-up specialist Tal Nolen, whom Whishaw was pleased to see return to their draft.

“This colt needed a little more time to furnish,” he said. “We would have liked a little more for him too, but Tal Nolen has bought a few horses off of us over the years, and there has to be earnings in there too for him. With this colt, I certainly think there will be. The stallion is well sought after in Hong Kong, so hopefully there is a bit of room for someone else to make a bit of money out of him too.”