Rheinwood Pastoral Co.

Tara Madgwick - Thursday, 10 June 2010

For many people the term double dipping invokes memories of a Seinfeld episode where George committed the ultimate offence of double dipping with the same biscuit at a cocktail party, but in the context of this story its about yearlings that double dipped when making their second sales appearance for the year at the Magic Millions National Yearling Sale earlier this week.

For a significant number of vendors of double dippers there were happy results as a strong international buying bench made for a solid market at the Gold Coast and some horses that struggled to make appeal at earlier sales found themselves in keen demand.

Heading the list of double dippers was an Encosta de Lago colt (pictured) from Group One winner Ellicorsam that was consigned by Willow Park and bought by Patinack Farm for $320,000, making him the second highest priced yearling at the sale.

At Inglis Easter earlier this year he was passed in at $240,000, just shy of his $250,000 reserve.

With 53 yearlings by Encosta de Lago sent through the ring in Sydney at Easter this year, he was an also ran, but on the Gold Coast he was one of 10 by the champion sire and deemed by the market the best of them.

People asked if he'd been through a sale before or they knew he had a $250 000 reserve at Easter and my explanation was that prior to Easter we thought he was a $350k colt then following a disappointing number of inspections and a patchy market we lowered our sights to $300k and then put a conservative reserve of $250k in the ring as we try to get our horses on the market, but we had no joy, explained Glenn Burrows of Willow Park.

After he was passed in I did the stats that told me 100 Encosta's had been through the ring this year for an average of $291k and I thought this is a colt that we really like, he has good x-rays, so surely he has to be worth at least the average price for his sire.

He's the second foal of a brilliantly fast Group One winner whose first foal by Tale of the Cat made $325k as yearling.

The decision was taken to roll the dice again and send him to the Gold Coast where he met with a better reception.

He had more inspections on his first parade day on the Gold Coast than four inspection days combined at Easter and he had five hits by very serious buyers in the repository compared to two at Easter, said Burrows.

He was more matured and furnished physically this time and that was probably the difference between just missing Patinacks final list at Easter to being their number one choice in the sale up here.

MM put together a very good buying bench, especially for decent colts. If you had a nice colt with pedigree and good x-rays the buyers from Hong Kong and Singapore were all over them.

An interesting double dipper was the third highest priced lot, a colt (pictured) by Flying Spur from Purde that made $285,000 for Reavill Farm when secured by South African based World Wide Bloodstock.

He was actually sold by Reavill at Inglis Easter to Mulcaster Bloodstock at $275,000, but a subsequent scoping test revealed a temporary issue related to a throat infection and rather than wait for the horse to recover, the buyer elected to return the colt, hence his reappearance at the Gold Coast, where he made slightly more money.

Fourth highest priced horse was an Encosta de Lago filly (pictured) from Golden Slipper winner Calaway Gal that made $280,000 for Newgate Farm when snapped up by New Zealander David Ellis, who bought multiple Group One winner Princess Coup from this sale in 2005 for $260,000.

She too was somewhat overlooked at Inglis Easter where she was bought by Colm Santry Bloodstock for $130,000, making her one of the cheapest Encostas sold at Easter.

Coming in at number five on the list of top sellers was a colt by Holy Roman Emperor (IRE) from Opportune that made $240,000 for Yarraman Park as agent for Rheinwood Pastoral when secured by HK based Magus Equine.

He has the honour of being the highest selling yearling in the Southern Hemisphere this year from the first crop of Holy Roman Emperor, which is somewhat ironic given that he was offered at the Magic Millions flagship sale in January where he passed in at $110,000 with a reserve of $120,000.

When he went to the sale in January I really thought he was entitled to make his reserve and when he didnt my first thought was to keep him and race him as he was always my favourite yearling, said Ray Willis of Rheinwood Pastoral.

Some of the guys that were going into the syndicate to race him pulled out and its just too costly to race one on your own, so we decided to try and sell him again.

We gave him a light preparation at home and then sent him up to Harry Mitchell at Yarraman only about three weeks ago.

Mr Willis revealed a couple of things had changed in the colts favour since January - he had grown and his legs which were a bit upright in front had relaxed and of course Holy Roman Emperor (pictured) has had six winners now and a stakes-winner on the eve of the sale.

We thought he was a $100k to $140k colt, so for him to make the money he did is a real bonus and on the whole it?s been a good year for us, said Willis.

We sold a couple of Nadeem yearlings for $220K and $180K at Inglis Easter and a Testa Rossa filly for $340k at the same sale.

There is no doubt its a much tougher marketplace than it was and I believe this will change very little in the immediate future, but its encouraging when the right horses can still produce a good result.

Magic Millions have worked hard to establish this sale as a viable alternative for commercial vendors and results like these will no doubt breed a bit of confidence in the practice of selling yearlings in June.

The business of breeding and selling thoroughbreds is fraught with pitfalls and when things do go pear-shaped and you dont get the result you would like at a premium yearling sale, its nice to have a back-up plan and for many savy vendors MM National is that back-up plan.