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Gross, top price and average all reach new levels at Classic
A record individual days gross, a record individual price and a record sale average was set on the first day of the 2022 Inglis Classic Yearling Sale on Sunday.
The top lot was Bell River's Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt) colt who set a record sale price when he was bought for $775,000 by James Harron Bloodstock's Colts Partnership. It surpassed the previous record set 12 months ago of $625,000.
The top lot was part of a record days gross for the sale, with the first day's turnover sitting at $26,345,000, up from last year's Day 1 record of $21,418,000.
The average of $127,271 is up 20% from this time last year, while the median ($110,000, up from $90,000 last year) and clearance rate (85%) were both extremely buoyant.
In a further sign of the strength of the yearling market at present, 115 horses sold for $100,000 or more today – up from 95 on Day 1 last year – while 35 sold for $200,000 or more compared to 17 in 2021.
The day's second-top lot came late in the day when Hong Kong buyer Bon Ho of Legend Racing – who bought The Everest conqueror Classique Legend (Not A Single Doubt) at this same auction in 2017 - went to $550,000 to secure Lot 263, the Deep Field (Northern Meteor) colt out of Spellbinder (O'Reilly) from the draft of Newgate.
"The market is very hot, the good-looking horses fetch a very good price,'' Mr Ho said.
"It's very good for the vendors but for the buyers like myself, we have to pay more than our budget for the better ones.
"This colt was the best-looking horse at the sale for me and there were some very good trainers as under bidders so I'm very pleased to get him. He was recommended to me by William Freedman, so he will be trained by William.''
WOW!!! What an incredible result for @NewgateFarm congratulations to your whole team on the sale of your amazing Deep Field X Spellbinder colt (Lot 263). Best of luck to Legend Racing who were able to snatch him up for $550K. pic.twitter.com/f6O9DpbVWG
— Inglis (@inglis_sales) February 6, 2022
Newgate's Jim Carey added: "He grew up on the farm and hopefully he can be as good as some of our previous Classic sale graduates in Shadow Hero and Profiteer who came from our drafts in the past couple of years. If he's as half as good as them, we'll be happy.
"It's unbelievable, really. The Inglis guys have done a fantastic job to get clients here and we purposely brought some really nice horses to this sale.
"We're not finished yet, we have some really nice horses over the next couple of days and it is a great effort by everyone at the farms and at Inglis to ensure that it's a successful sale.''
Inglis Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch described Day 1 of Classic as rewarding.
"Riverside has been buzzing all week and that enthusiasm translated to the market today,'' Hutch said.
"We are extremely lucky in this country to be in a golden era of our sport with fantastic prizemoney and a racing product which is a tremendous spectacle right throughout the year, which in turn generates tremendous confidence in people looking to get involved.
"We were expecting it to be a strong sale as we have been supported by many of Australasia's best breeders with plenty of fantastic horses, but, as strong as it was, there are any number of buyers going home with smiles on their faces having found nice horses for value.
"There are lots of good yearlings still there to be bought and any number of opportunities for those who have been disappointed today to buy nice horses tomorrow and on Tuesday."
