Strong competition for stock makes sales companies sweat

Cover image courtesy of Magic Millions

In 2026, there were 4939 yearlings catalogued for sale by Inglis and Magic Millions across all their physical auctions. A further 848 were catalogued by New Zealand Bloodstock for their National Yearling Sale.

The 2027 sales series begins in January with the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale which runs from January 12-17 with the catalogue expected to be available to view in November.

But crafting a yearling catalogue is not a straight-forward business.

“The competition between the two sales companies is fantastic for the market. Having two auction houses going hell for leather competing for yearlings can only be a positive if you are a vendor,” Inglis CEO Sebastian Hutch said.

Collaboration is more important than nominations

Magic Millions open the year with the big Gold Coast sale, an event that takes place over a fortnight with feature race meetings to coincide with it. The sales company move region after that with Tasmania, Perth, Adelaide and back to the Gold Coast for the March sale.

Inglis are more spread out with their sales series with Classic in early February, moving through Premier in March and Easter in early April before concluding with the HTBA sale in late April.

Outwardly, the process starts with the sales companies asking vendors to nominate yearlings for sale before they are inspected and then they are either selected or rejected for the nominated sale. But often vendors will nominate yearlings for more than one sale, forcing the sales companies to make their case for why they should sell them.

“We inspect and evaluate yearlings for all the sales in tandem. Obviously the major competing sale is in January, so the two auction houses in Australia are effectively looking at yearlings at the same time,” Hutch said. This happens in July, August and September.

“As much as is practicable, it’s a process where we're fully engaged with the vendors, and it is a collaborative process with them, in terms of identifying the right horses, and the right sales.”

Magic Millions’ James Hetherington agreed. It’s not just the sale company making an assessment and vendors taking their medicine.

“The beauty of it is that we look at all the horses in August. We are viewing them all on the same plane of growth. From there, we provide feedback to the vendors on where we see horses fitting through our sale series,” James Hetherington said.

“We like to think we have a sale where each horse can stand out in its own merits, and then it’s about communicating with a vendor and getting the best option for placing that horse throughout our sales series.

“It’s a collaborative approach over a long period of time. We get around the paddocks in April and May looking at weanlings and come back around again in August. You're having conversations about these horses over a six to eight month period. It lets you get a very good feel of horses and where they sit in the different sales and now it's about bringing it all together and balancing the numbers.

“Sales companies have a fresh set of eyes on each horse, whereas the vendors have seen the horse for their entire life, so they know their projection well.”

A holistic approach to the selections

Even before nominations are taken, both companies are doing their research on the whole foal crop and how each potential yearling fits across a holistic view of the crop.

“We do a huge amount of research on the makeup of the foal crop, we hold internal discussions about stallions, pedigrees, the structure of the respective sales, where improvements can be made, all these different things through strategic planning, which effectively starts from when the sale finishes the previous year,” Hutch said.

The holistic viewpoint is part of Magic Millions’ approach too.

“We are basing our decisions on the total foal crop and where the horse sits amongst its competitors. If you are the 20th ranked horse by a stallion, you might be better off coming back a rung and standing out by being in the top couple of horses by that stallion at a sale. It’s in everyone's best interests that a horse goes to a sale and stands out in the best way,” Hetherington said.

The inspections are a key part of working this out.

“By inspecting as many of the commercial yearlings in the country that we can, we're also able to give people a better guide as to where their horses sit in the context of the stallion’s crop in our opinion,” Hutch said.

Both companies are not just inspecting the nominated horses, but often will look at every horse on a farm to get a better handle on what fits where and how to rank them against each other from a buyer’s point of view.

But this process can also lead to disappointment if a vendor doesn’t get a horse into a sale they want. Managing these expectations is a key part of the process.

“It's a subjective thing. Our bloodstock team who are doing inspections are effectively eleven people and we are asking them to be the eyes of a buying bench that's expected to make up the whole buying bench across our three select sales, the Gold Coast in January and the balance of the rest,” Hutch said.

“We have plenty of instances where we might have a different opinion on a horse, and we might agree to give the vendor the benefit of the doubt or someone with a strong opinion gets the benefit of the doubt. And those opinions get tested, six to eight months later in the ring.”

In the end, the sale ring is the great leveller of opinions and a vendor might get bragging rights if a horse sells better than the sale company expected, or in the worst case, their expectations don’t meet the market and the horse doesn’t sell.

“We do a lot of work reviewing the performance of horses in a sale relative to what our beliefs were the previous spring,” Hutch said.

“We are more than happy to concede that we sometimes make mistakes, but I'm very comfortable that we approach it with the very best intentions to try and get the best outcomes for as many people as we can, because we rely on the support of those people the following year and the year after.”

It is, after all, a business of relationships.

“Business comes down to relationships and in the case of putting together yearling catalogues, that is more applicable than any other facet of the business from my experience,” Hutch said.

“The nature of the relationship, and the strength of the relationship, is an important feature of whether a vendor takes on our advice or not.

“It's all about trying to develop an understanding of the mechanics of different vendors, how they like to do things, what fits their structure, what suits them, where they enjoy selling, where they've had good results, and how their crop might compare from one year to the next.”

Providing a vendor with the most information behind each decision is key to maintaining those relationships, as is understanding the vendor’s needs and processes.

“There are always different preferences from vendors about where they sell their horses and how they want to do it. When you've got a smaller draft, it's hard to be prepping for multiple sales throughout the year,” Hetherington said.

“We have to tailor to the individual farms and what their needs are. Some people might want the whole draft at a certain sale, and then there might be horses who could have stood out at another sale, but prepping for one sale is the most cost-effective way for these vendors. We want to support the smaller breeders with that option if they need.”

The middle of the market matters

The top lot at each sale gets plenty of media attention, but for the sales companies building a strong catalogue is about depth throughout. In 2026, there were 1816 active buyers or buying groups across the whole yearling market. Each of those buyers has a different need and thus the key is to create catalogues that cater to each buyer.

“Both sales companies are fighting over the same group of horses. There’s a lot of conversation around trying to hold a strong middle as that's where the bulk of a sale comes from,” Hetherington said.

“When we're lining up the January sale, most yearlings are in that strong middle market, and that’s what we’ve built our brand off. They are as important as the top end ones.”

Hutch also mentioned the median price point and catering to the biggest section of the buying bench.

“We want horses in a catalogue that are going to appeal to buyers at different price points. The median price of a yearling in Australia last year was around $80,000, so that tells you where most sit,” Hutch said.

“Given how we work the buyer canvas, I don’t think a vendor is at an advantage or disadvantage by selling at any of our sales.

“We put an equivalent amount of work into every catalogue to get as many buyers as we can for each of those sales. It comes down to personal preference to buyers, sometimes there's a timing issue, sometimes people are looking for particular kinds of horses.

“We've always found that Classic is a sale that anybody's happy to attend. People have developed real respect for it. Premier typically gets well supported by local trainers and by Hong Kong and Asian buyers as a general cohort. And obviously there's a profile of people who go to Easter to buy yearlings that won't go to any other sale.”

It’s too soon to make a call on the season

Both sales companies were reticent to predict how this sales season would go. We are still three months away from Magic Millions opening proceedings at the Gold Coast, but the major sales in the Northern Hemisphere are part-way through and historically have provided some indication for the global economic outlook.

“It's fantastic to see the confidence in the market in the pursuit of quality bloodstock. That's a very important position for the market to be in. There are nuances to every international market that might not necessarily be translatable. Obviously there have been some tax incentives in the US that stimulated their market and they've got a pretty rare profile stallion at the moment with an incredible lineup of them,” Hutch said.

“The European market has its challenges. Book One at Tattersalls looks to have started well, and there’s obviously tremendous support for that sale from the Middle East. Goffs was a good sale, but then some of their middle market sales have been more difficult.”

Hetherington also noted the USA 100% write down rule as a factor over there.

“In years gone by, you could use those sales as a guide for our market, but with the tax breaks in America and the level of investment in Europe at the moment, it's hard to line it up against us,” Hetherington said.

“Australia is very much reliant on the syndicators and the trainers taking a risk and the mums and dads buying shares in horses. We’ve got to be keeping incentivising those people to invest in the market.

“We've got to cater to a broader audience here but it is good to see there's plenty of money in the world going around at these sales. How much it correlates here, well, we will find out at the start of the year. It gives a mark of good confidence but how much it resonates here has yet to be seen.”

With more seven figure lots sold at Keeneland September this year than in 2025, and day one of Tattersalls October being up 15% by gross, the top of the market is strong globally.

“Fundamentally, if there's the strength of the top of the market, it gives the opportunity for things to flow through and creates opportunity in other parts of the market for people. It’s a preferential spot to be working from than some alternative positions,” Hutch said.

“We've got a 2-year-old sale next Thursday and I'm cautiously optimistic about it but there’s a lot to play out (before yearling sales season).”

There are plenty of reasons to carry that optimism into the 2027 sales too.

“Australia's in a great place at the moment. Prize money's going well. If you're looking through the race results, there are plenty of syndicators and mid-level trainers who are getting great results on the track right through the carnival. And you can see in the race books how much prize money you're racing for, which definitely gives positivity in the marketplace,” Hetherington said.

Keen breeding enthusiasts eagerly await the release of the 2027 catalogues, with Magic Millions beginning the ball rolling with the Gold Coast Yearling Sale releasing in November. Meanwhile, vendors are getting letters from the two sales companies, so it's time to analyse the reports and decide where best to finalise their options. It’s still all to play for at this stage and vendors with a good type of horse have more power than they might realise in a competitive marketplace.