by Lewis Lesbirel/TTR AusNZ
Buyers will be afforded a once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity to secure a daughter of Australia's most decorated racemare after it was announced on Sunday that the owners of Winx (Aus) (Street Cry {Ire}) have opted to sell her first foal at the 2024 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale.
The daughter of Pierro (Lonhro {Aus}) will be offered by Coolmore, the farm on which Winx herself was raised, on behalf of her owners Peter and Patty Tighe, Woppitt Bloodstock, Elizabeth Treweeke and Rick Treweeke on Day 2 of the Inglis Easter sale, which is to be held at Inglis' Riverside Stables complex on Sunday, Apr. 7 and Monday, Apr. 8 in 2024.
In what Inglis CEO Sebastian Hutch believes is a huge coup not only for the auction house, but the bloodstock industry in general, Inglis will set about attracting a buying bench befitting of the queen of Australian racing, and Hutch can hardly contain his excitement at the prospect of selling such a rare collector's item.
“It's as excited as I've been in my time at Inglis and I can't imagine too many times in my bloodstock life that I'd be more excited,” he said. “It's a fantastic opportunity for our business, but generally speaking it's just going to be fantastic for the Australian thoroughbred.
“There is tremendous respect for the Australian thoroughbred internationally and you only have to look at the exploits of the horses that have travelled overseas in the past 20 years to see the significant impression they are capable of making, whether it's as racehorses, stallions or mares.
“This is a horse that we can promote to the world and have the world embrace a filly of this quality.”
Winx, who officially turned 12 by her birthdate on Thursday, hasn't had the easiest of starts to life as a broodmare, losing her first foal by Champion Sire I Am Invincible and missing to Arrowfield Stud stalwart Snitzel last year.
Difficult decision
Winx | Inglis
There are few people more closely associated with Winx than her co-owner Debbie Kepitis, who has enjoyed a huge amount of success as a breeder under both the Ingham Racing and Woppitt Bloodstock banners.
With Winx's first living foal being by Pierro, a Golden Slipper-winning son of the Ingham-bred and raced champion Lonhro, the filly represented a real family affair for Kepitis, who revealed to TTR AusNZ the thought process behind the ownership group's decision to sell the regally-bred yearling.
“It's never easy to come to a decision to sell any of your progeny when you breed them and this decision was not made lightly,” she said. “You ultimately breed what you like to race, so it's always an emotional and difficult decision.
“We had an amazing time with Winx and it would be so easy to have just kept this filly in the ownership group and race her on, but when we had such a beautiful specimen, it just seemed the right thing to let her go and let another group of people enjoy the fun we had.
“Winx has put her heart and soul into this wonderful foal and she deserves to have this amazing product shown to everybody.”
The decision to sell Winx's Pierro filly was in no way affected by Time Of My Life's impressive debut win at Geelong last week according to Kepitis, who reiterated that the prospect of selling the prized offering had been mooted amongst the ownership group for some time.
She is not yet sure what her overriding emotion will be when the time comes for Winx's Pierro filly to enter the sales ring, but Kepitis and her fellow owners are confident that the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale is the right place to showcase such a rare commodity.
“It hasn't been a quick decision and we've been discussing this as an ownership group for a long time, but we are 100 per cent all behind this decision,” she said.
“This is not a simple process. We had to look at every scenario to make sure we were totally comfortable with all the factors. We also had to look at where we should showcase her and that was a challenging decision that we had to go through as well.
“We have two amazing bloodstock companies in Australia. Winx was bought at Magic Millions, so people would say naturally she should go there, but as we all discussed, when you're showing a product of that amazing mare you want them at their absolute best.
“You also want them to be able to cope with it. This is going to be a big hoopla sale, so she has to have the maturity to cope with being on show. It's like when you take a really good racehorse to the races for the first time, the good trainers make sure that their product is going to showcase well, and that's what we as an ownership group believe we needed to do.
“We kept discussing it and this looked like the best way forward with this beautiful little filly. It'll be heart in the mouth stuff.”
One thing's for certain, the eyes of the bloodstock world will descend on Riverside Stables come April 8 as a new chapter in Winx's wonderful story is written.
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