Cover image courtesy of Inglis
Selling stock as weanlings helps breeders get some cash in their pockets ahead of the next breeding season and allows pinhookers to take a punt on a good type with some upside for the yearling sales in just under a year’s time. But the weanling sales often are a story of two halves, and the quartile analysis for the Inglis Australian Weanling Sale indicates this picture with a degree of starkness.
The metrics for the 2026 Inglis Australian Weanling Sale showed a boom with the average pushing to a record $66,465, up from $48,750 five years ago in 2022. The median, which had been static from 2022 to 2025 at $30,000 lifted to $40,000 in 2026.
Figures from Inglis website as at 07/05/2026
The clearance rate at this sale over the past five years has held fairly steady and was at 77% one day after the sale ended in 2026. It might lift a little as passed in lots sell over the next week.
| 2026 | 294 | $ 40,000 | 77% | $ 19,540,750 | $ 66,465 |
| 2025 | 365 | $ 30,000 | 78% | $ 19,310,150 | $ 52,905 |
| 2024 | 304 | $ 30,000 | 82% | $ 16,280,000 | $ 53,553 |
| 2023 | 255 | $ 30,000 | 75% | $ 13,024,000 | $ 51,075 |
| 2022 | 268 | $ 30,000 | 78% | $ 13,065,000 | $ 48,750 |
Table: Inglis Australian Weanling Sale five-year metrics
Quartile analysis
This year set a record aggregate at $19.5 million, up slightly on last year’s aggregate of $19.3 million but 2025 saw 365 weanlings sold, while this year that figure dropped to 294. This is a lift of almost $6.5 million on the 2022 gross of $13 million, so in simple terms, more money is flowing back to breeders than five years ago.
In that same five year time period, the average price has grown almost steadily year on year from $48,750 in 2022, until 2026’s record of $66,465. This is a 27% lift in average over the past five years.
Inglis Weanling Sale 2026 | Image courtesy of Inglis
The top end of the market – the highest priced 25% of lots sold – has also risen 27% in the past five years, directly the same as the whole sale. The average at the top has gone from $124,440 in 2022 to $171,541 to 2026, showing the appetite for pinhookers and end users to buy nice types with strong pedigrees early in their growth phase.
Meanwhile the bottom 25% of the catalogue has lifted by 14%. Things are better at the bottom, but the growth isn’t matching the growth at the top end.
The weanling sales can also used by breeders to get out of an ordinary weanling before too much cost is sunk into the animal. And the lowest quartile of the sale definitely demonstrates this with an average of $6051.
The only good news is that this is a sharp rise on the same segment of the sale in 2025 where the average was $3667, and a 14% lift over the past five years, up from 2022’s quartile four average of $5194.
Tigella as a yearling | Image courtesy of Inglis
This might be bad news for breeders, or good news if your perspective is that the horse found a new home and there’s no more cost going forward. From an end user point of view, this group of horses can still produce a decent racehorse. This season’s juvenile winner Tigella (Tiger Of Malay) sold here two years ago for $4000 to Valiant Stud. She is one of only eight winners from the 2024 sale who are in their 2-year-old season currently.
| 2026 | 294 | $ 66,465 | $ 170,541 | $ 60,116 | $ 28,250 | $ 6,051 |
| 2025 | 365 | $ 52,905 | $ 141,793 | $ 46,060 | $ 18,492 | $ 3,667 |
| 2024 | 304 | $ 53,553 | $ 147,105 | $ 43,649 | $ 18,720 | $ 4,408 |
| 2023 | 255 | $ 51,075 | $ 137,109 | $ 46,484 | $ 17,195 | $ 3,438 |
| 2022 | 268 | $ 48,750 | $ 124,440 | $ 45,104 | $ 20,261 | $ 5,194 |
Table: Quartile analysis of the 2026 Inglis Australian Weanling Sale
Showcasing the first foals by young sires
Getting weanlings in front of breeders can be a handy marketing tool for a stallion with the industry getting to see a representation of the first foals by a young stallion ahead of the upcoming breeding season.
These stallions with their first crop of weanlings are heading into their third season at stud, and its common knowledge that the third and fourth seasons are the trickiest for a farm to fill a stallion’s book. A horse is seen as all risk by then as they’ll have proven runners when you have a weanling or yearling to sell, and if they haven’t done the job, then your foal is automatically relegated into the tough lower end of the market.
But the upside, when it comes is huge, and one way to encourage breeders to keep backing a stallion is to present nice looking stock at the weanling sales. In 2026, there were 13 stallions in the catalogue with progeny from their first crop of weanlings. Of those, seven achieved an average price at or above the median price of the whole sale, being $40,000.
Shinzo | Standing at Coolmore Stud
Unsurprisingly, buyers at the 2026 Inglis Australian Weanling Sale went hard for the first foals of G1 Golden Slipper winner Shinzo. His ten weanlings sold for an average of $193,000, well above the sale average and led by sale topping filly Lot 43, who made $600,000 to the bid of SP Bloodstock, while Shinzo also had the equal second-top lot at $400,000 for Lot 412, a colt bought by Cool Partners.
The trifecta of Shinzo’s Golden Slipper all did well, with third-placed King’s Gambit coming in second with an average of $96,700 for five weanlings sold and second-placed Cylinder achieving an average of $52,000 for four weanlings sold. Only triple-Group 1 winner Benbatl (GB) split them, with his two weanlings achieving an average of $62,000.
| Shinzo | 10 | 2 | $ 1,930,000 | $ 193,000 |
| King's Gambit | 5 | 5 | $ 483,500 | $ 96,700 |
| Benbatl (GB) | 2 | $ 124,000 | $ 62,000 | |
| Cylinder | 4 | 1 | $ 208,000 | $ 52,000 |
| Hawaii Five Oh | 5 | 1 | $ 256,000 | $ 51,200 |
| Native Trail (GB) | 10 | 2 | $ 400,000 | $ 40,000 |
| Triple Time (IRE) | 1 | $ 40,000 | $ 40,000 |
Table: First season sires in 2026 with a weanling average above the sale median
Location of buyers
There was a strong contingent of international interest at the sale in 2026 with 47 lots (16%) bought by overseas buyers. Just under half of the lots sold will stay in NSW with local buyers taking home 48% of lots sold, and NSW buyers spent more than the sale average at $73,072.
New Zealand buyers were the highest nation by volume with 33 weanlings purchased in 2026 at an average of $71,848 showing their faith in their own yearling market and local prizemoney. Hong Kong buyers put their hands up for seven weanlings at the sale average of $66,000.
Victorian buyers were more cautious, spending an average of $58,633 (less than the sale average) on 60 lots, while Queenslanders spent an average of $39,278 on 27 lots. Western Australia’s booming local economy saw 13 lots head that way at an average of $59,808.
The four lots purchase by three different Tasmanian buyers show the uselessness of an average when dealing with small numbers, with an impressive average of $120,500 but this was bolstered by $400,000 for Lot 167, the Frankel (GB) colt, while two Tasmanian purchases cost just $1000 each.
| NSW | 142 | $ 10,376,250 | $ 73,072 |
| VIC | 60 | $ 3,518,000 | $ 58,633 |
| NEW ZEALAND | 33 | $ 2,371,000 | $ 71,848 |
| QLD | 27 | $ 1,060,500 | $ 39,278 |
| WA | 13 | $ 777,500 | $ 59,808 |
| TAS | 4 | $ 482,000 | $ 120,500 |
| HONG KONG | 7 | $ 462,000 | $ 66,000 |
| USA | 1 | $ 155,000 | $ 155,000 |
| UNITED KINGDOM | 1 | $ 130,000 | $ 130,000 |
| JAPAN | 2 | $ 105,000 | $ 52,500 |
| SOUTH AFRICA | 3 | $ 102,500 | $ 34,167 |
| SA | 1 | $ 1,000 | $ 1,000 |
Table: Buyer location at the 2026 Inglis Australian Weanling Sale
