The Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale Shines with 86% Clearance Rate and Record-Breaking Averages

The numbers for the Australian Easter Yearling Sale as they stand at time of writing are stunning. The Inglis Bloodstock team will be beavering away on finding buyers for horses that originally passed in, but at a very healthy 86% clearance rate they shouldn’t have that many phone calls to make. In comparison to last year, only 80% sold at the first attempt although that metric has been as high as 90% in 2021, a year when anything with four legs and a mane sold well.

The two fiscal dollar figures are the numbers that express just how of how successful the two day auction was. Inglis shred 20% of the catalogue from 2024 weeding out anything, filtering out anything they didn’t think had the ‘cachet’ warranted to make the book. Despite that, and that last year the first foal out of Winx sold for an incredible A$10 million, the gross takings of $150 million is down only 1.2% with 332 horses sold. The reduced catalogue undoubtedly bolstered both the average of $451,913 which climbed 6%, and the median which sits at $360,000, a stunning $60,000 better than last year.

It would be grossly unfair to compare the $3 million top seller against Winx’s daughter, so let’s go with the son of freshman sire Home Affairs being the fourth dearest colt ever sold at Easter, the ill-fated Redoute’s Choice half-brother to Black Caviar and All Too Hard holding the record at A$5 million. He did, however, become the dearest colt by a first season sire sold at auction when Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, along with Bruce Slade’s Kestrel Thoroughbreds and partners thought to include John Singleton, outlasted the opposition.

Waterhouse and Bott had a slight edge over other suitors given they trained the colt’s mother Shout The Bar (Not A Single Doubt), winner of the Gr.1 Vinery Storm Queen Stakes at three and later that year the Gr.1 Empire Rose Stakes at Flemington. As Bott explained about Shout The Bar in his post-purchase interview, “She was an immense talent, an incredibly tough horse, had a great constitution and a great mindset for racing. He (the colt) looked very much in that mould carrying all those good qualities. We want to see him featuring early in the two-year-old races, but he looks like he's got plenty of scope and class to keep carrying on throughout his career.”

Rarely will a first season sire come into Easter with such a reputation as Home Affairs had, nor will they have 27 lots to offer. His 22 to sell at an average of $395,909 was outstanding and ensured he led the First Season Sires Table by Average for three or more lots offered.

The sale topping colt came from the paddocks of Coolmore and Tom Magnier, and his team spent most of the two days reinvesting their profits, the boss of the Australian arm signing off for six of the 25 lots that would sell for seven figure sums. That becomes all the more impressive when you considered they sold a further four of the remainder.

Their headline purchase was the $2.7 million they outlaid for a Snitzel colt out of the Canadian mare Ms Bad Behavior, a full brother to their Gr.1 Coolmore Stud Stakes winner Switzerland who is almost assuredly bound for the stallion barn at Jerry’s Plains this Spring.

Bred by Arrowfield Stud and the Cloros family, the colt was firmly in the sights of a number of buyers, particularly the Waterhouse/Bott team who traded blows with Magnier, but surrounded by confidante’s M V Magnier, Paul Shanahan and Chris Waller, the boss of the powerhouse farm wasn’t to be denied.

While some buyers prefer to diversify when purchasing, others can’t get too much of a good thing, Magnier explaining why the team took to this colt, “You kind of drill where we’ve found oil before. Every time he came out, he just stood there, he was so balanced with just that attitude you want in these colts, taking it all in. He's got a lot of quality and hopefully he could win a couple of races, then he'd be a very exciting horse.”  Asked what similarities he saw with Switzerland Magnier said, “He's got a strong hindquarter and loads of quality like his brother.”

For the evergreen Snitzel this was another outstanding Easter Sale. Stallions of his tender age of twenty when this crop were conceived are regarded as in the twilight of their careers, age being a liability statistically. But the very best never waver, and as if to ram home his sheer class the Arrowfield stalwart sired the recent Gr.1 Golden Slipper winner Marhooba. He would have 31 yearlings sell this week at a remarkable average of $718,387 off a service fee of $200,000, a stunning return on investment for most vendors.

While Snitzel has added four Champion Sire trophies to the Arrowfield mantelpiece most consider Widden Stud’s Zoustar to be a Champion Sire in waiting. (He currently lies second in a closely run title this year, quite possibly decided by this week’s Queen Elizabeth Stakes result).

The son of Northern Meteor had a stunning two days at Riverside finishing second only to Snitzel when it came to averages selling 29 at $644,138 apiece. His headline act was the dearest filly of the week, a $2.6 million lass offered by Widden and sold to American John Stewart under his Resolute Racing banner. The filly is out of the Sebring mare The Actuary, a Listed winner in Brisbane but of more significance a half-sister to the three time Group 1 winner Zougotcha. As Monday’s filly is by the same sire that makes her a three-quarter sister to the Chris Waller star.

At the end of an outstanding sale Inglis CEO Bloodstock Sales Sebastian Hutch put the success of Easter down to the sheer hard work of his team in getting the format right and then going to extraordinary lengths to give vendors the best opportunity to make a profit. Relaxed once the final lot had left the stage, Hutch told the media “This is definitely the best performing sale of the year by some extraordinary margin. (Melbourne) Premier is the only other sale whose metrics are up for the year.”

Asked how his team had come up with such a strong catalogue, Hutch explained “Australasian vendors are in this wonderful environment where they have a huge number of options as to where they sell quality yearlings. We promote this sale as the best sale at which to sell quality stock, and ultimately, there's an onus on us to back that up. That's a huge source of motivation for us and this year in particular we wanted to demonstrate to the market this is the best sale at which to sell quality stock. I feel we've done that pretty emphatically.”

Pushed on whether the refined catalogue had concentrated the cash available onto a smaller pot to choose from, Hutch replied “I think we could have carried 30 more yearlings of the necessary quality, no problem. There's an extraordinary number of people walking out of here having not bought the number of horses they had anticipated buying in advance of the sale. That's a source of frustration for the auctioneers, but that's something for us to address in the long run.”