"The colt of the year" sells for $2.3 million

[Chief Stipe]

$2.3m on four legs. Photo: Darryl Sherer

Article Author

Darryl Sherer

11 April 2018

13 Comments

The colt of the year from the best family in the southern hemisphere is how Anthony Freedman described the $2.3m brother to Shoals which sold at the Inglis Australian Easter yearling sale on Wednesday.

Bidding opened on the Fastnet Rock colt, consigned by Arrowfield, at $500,000 and ended with Freedman, standing in the gateway to the right of auctioneer Jonathan D’Arcy, who described the colt as having 'the ultimate stallions page'.

Freedman trains Group I Myer Classic and Surround Stakes winner Shoals and said his knowledge of her was instrumental in him wanting to buy the colt out of The Broken Shore, a Sydney winning half-sister to Redoute’s Choice and Manhattan Rain.

“You’ve got to pay for these colts but knowing the family as I do I was very confident he was the right type,” Freedman said.

“Knowing her and having that sort of intel gave me more confidence, he’s not too big and I think he’s just a bigger version of her.

“I really only looked at him a couple of times but I’d seen enough to know he was the right horse,

"It’s a lot of money but it’s the best family in the southern hemisphere and colts like this are hard to get - for me he was the colt of the year,"

Freedman said he came to the sale intending to bid on the October 26 foaled colt but hoping to buy.

“I came here wanting to bid on him and buy him but you never really know until you get to the actual sale,” Freedman said.

“It all came together late - we still had a little bit left in the tank, I didn’t want to walk away without having a good crack at buying him.

“There’s a group of people we’d expect would be interested with some good clients in him as well but we’ll sort that out now we've got him.”

The colt was one of 22 yearlings at the sale to sell for $1m or more and makes a total of 31 to sell for seven figures in Australia and New Zealand this year.

At the conclusion of Book 1 of the 2018 Australian Easter yearling sale, the gross of $116,057,500 is second only to the 2008 Easter Yearling Sale.

The sale average finished at $347,478, slightly down on 2017, with a median of $250,000 and a clearance rate of 84 percent compared to 87 percent in 2017.

The leading vendor by gross was Arrowfield with $18,265,000 and the leading sire by gross was Snitzel with $21,685,000 at an average of $528,902 and seven to sell for $1m or more.

Shadwell Stud spent $6,140,000 to be the biggest spender ahead of the Hong Kong Jockey Club