A weanling filly by Frankel (GB) (lot 7) topped the first day of the Inglis Great Southern Sale when selling to New Zealander Gary Harding for A$525,000 on Thursday.
The only offspring by the Juddmonte star in the entire sale, the bay is out of GIII Chicago S. heroine Abby Hatcher (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}), who is a half-sister to a stakes winner in Purciaretta (Ire) (Cotai Glory {GB}). The third-most expensive weanling sold in Australia this year, she was consigned by Rosemont Stud.
Harding bid over the phone to Inglis bloodstock CEO Sebastian Hutch and said, “Sebastian called me and suggested a couple of weanlings he thought might suit me and I've got a lot of confidence in him, he's very straight forward to deal with, there's no bullshit which is what I like.
“We liked the pedigree, the crosses looked good and she vetted out very well so we thought we'd try to buy her. I thought she'd make between A$400,000 and A$500,000, I let someone else bid A$500,000 and then thought I'd have one more bid at the A$525,000 and that was enough thankfully.
“It's a lot of money but you've got to pay for the good ones and we're happy we've bought her.
“We've bought her to race. She'll come back to New Zealand, we'll put her on our good Waikato pastures and hopefully she grows into a good horse for us. She'll start out racing here in New Zealand and hopefully she's good enough to run in Australia before too long.”
Overall, there were 22 weanlings who made A$100,000 or more on Thursday, which equaled the entirety of the 2023 Great Southern Sale. The clearance rate was 60.3% for 146 sold from 242 offered for a gross of A$7,431,000. The average was A$50,897 and the median was A$28,750, both improvements on 2023.
“It was a great result,” said Rosemont's Ryan McEvoy. “You're not sure one way or the other on what to do with a filly like her, whether to take her through to a yearling sale or not but she just was a filly who stood out to us, we thought she'd be a really good highlight lot in a draft that we were really conscious of sending some quality here and she certainly was that, a beautiful moving filly, great shape for a Frankel, not too big but neat and strong and really intelligent.”
The Great Southern Sale will continue at 10 a.m. on Friday with 156 weanlings and 72 broodmares. For the full sale results, please visit the Inglis website.
Not a subscriber? Click here to sign up for the daily PDF or alerts.
