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803 youngsters catalogued for the three days of trade at Riverside
With the yearling sales very much underway in Australasia, Inglis will launch their series when the Classic yearling sale kicks off at Riverside Stables in Sydney on Sunday, with a total of 803 yearlings assembled for the auction.
The auction houses’ general manager bloodstock sales and marketing Sebastian Hutch told Racing & Sports Bloodstock that, despite the ever-changing landscape amid the coronavirus pandemic, he is confident the sale will be a successful one.
“Obviously to try and plan for the sale was challenging, with all the border restrictions and we have gone out of our way to try and conduct a pragmatic sale,” said Hutch.
“Fortunately, circumstances have prevailed quite favourably that the majority of domestic buyers can get to the sale and the attendance on the ground have been fantastic. The inspections have been very strong and I think vendors across the board are pleased.”
Due to travel restrictions in place in many parts of the world, there will be some familiar faces missing at the Riverside Stables complex next week, but Hutch is convinced Inglis have gone above and beyond to ensure the people who cannot make the trip to Sydney will still have the confidence to buy through different avenues made available to them.
“We are quite hopeful we will have a diverse buying bench and we have got good procedures in place that allow us to help people who can’t physically be at the sale participate in the sale and the response to this has been very positive,” said Hutch.
“There feels like there is a good interest in the sale from Hong Kong, New Zealand and to some extent Singapore and Macau and while they can’t actually be here, we expect them to be active.”
Over the past 14 months buyers across the world have been forced to familiarise themselves with new technology to ensure they can bid on horses remotely and Hutch believes the straightforward nature of the technology available has come as a surprise to even the most apprehensive purchasers on the buying bench.
“The circumstances last year meant that they had to become familiar with bidding online and I think that people were taken aback by the ease of the process and user friendly it is,” said Hutch.
“I think what it has done it has encouraged people who may not have ordinarily used the facility to get involved and that is great, because the objective for us as an auction house is to grow the number of participants and the functionality of our online bidding system means that people are encouraged to get involved in the sale because they have realised it is easy to do so.
“Online registrations ahead of the sale are very encouraging and we are continuing to work with more and more people as the sale draws closer and the response has been very good. We are optimistic, but not complacent.”
The list of high-class graduates of the sale speak for itself, with the likes of Group 1 winners Brazen Beau (I Am Invincible), In Her Time (Time Thief), She Will Reign (Manhattan Rain) and Vow And Declare (Declaration Of War) all being unearthed at the sale and Hutch said he believes Classic punches way above its weight in terms of the calibre of horse the sale can produce.
“I think it’s perhaps the most under-estimated or under-appreciated sale in Australasia and is probably the best value sale in this part of the world,” said Hutch. “No sale in Australasia can lay claim to having produced the winners of the Golden Slipper, Melbourne Cup and Everest in the last ten renewals and that is something this sale can and that is unique in itself.
“We are very much of the view that anybody can come to Classic and find the horse they want, whether it is a two-year-old, or a filly with the pedigree or a colt that can go on to be a stallion, whatever profile you want to buy, and as a consequence everybody comes!
“As a result, I think there will be people participating in the Classic sale that people haven’t seen get involved in the yearling sale anywhere yet so far this year and that will add significantly to our buying bench.
“There will also be the usual people you expect to see, so I think the buyers will be represented and it will at the end of the day come down to their perception of the horses as to how much they get involved.”
The sale includes yearlings by 108 sires, while there are 22 first-season among the catalogue and Hutch believes Australia is on the cusp of a very exciting time in terms of young stallions which will have a very positive effect on the market for years to come.
“Assembling a catalogue is a challenging and exciting time,” said Hutch. “We set out with a very strong objective to get a catalogue that is well diversified in terms of stallion power, pedigree power and vendors and there are well over 100 stallions represented in the book and 76 individual vendors.
“Australia has a large crop of young exciting stallions, whether it is Deep Field, Rubick, Capitalist, Shalaa or American Pharoah, Australia is not short of these young stallions who look like they will have a big impression on the market for an extended period of time and they are well represented in the catalogue and add these to the proven stallions, I think the book looks really good on paper.”
The Classic sale has long been dubbed the auction where a buyer can pick up a bargain, most notably with the likes of the aforementioned Brazen Beau, who was purchased for $70,000 at the 2013 edition of the sale and would go on to win over $1.6 million in prize-money, while Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner She Will Reign was picked up for a mere $20,000 in 2016 and she pocketed $3,206,900 and Hutch said these sorts of results keep people returning to the sale year after year.
“I have seen some really nice horses on the grounds and the people I speak to have seen some really nice horses on the grounds, but as everybody knows, beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder,” he explained.
“The simple fact of the matter is that eight of the ten Group 1 winners to come out of the sale in 2018 could have been bought for $100,000 or less and while there are horses that are going to sell for very significant amounts of money over the next few days.
“However, similarly there are going to be horses that are bought for value prices and will turn out to be very well bought when they turn out to be top-class racehorses and that is what is appealing about this sale.
“This is what is amazing about the Classic sale is that people can come here and buy really good horses off really good breeders, who breed good tough, sound horses who win a lot of races and nobody enjoys anything more than winning and there is a hell a lot of winners to come out of this sale year after year and that puts a smile on a lot of people's faces”