Usual suspects to the fore at Magic Millions

Fresh off the back of a Melbourne Cup Carnival in which Victorian-bred horses accounted for five of the eight Group 1s on offer, last week’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale saw Victorians feature prominently as both buyers and sellers at the close of trade on Sunday evening.

Few have invested in Australian racing and breeding quite like Yuesheng Zhang over the past decade, and that investment continued to bear fruit for Yulong on the Gold Coast. The Nagambie-based operation ended the sale as the fifth leading vendor by gross, selling 46 yearlings across the five days of action for total receipts of $12,617,500.

Yulong were also active on the buying front, signing the docket at a cool $2 million for the joint sale-topping Extreme Choice colt out of Hazelbrook. Consigned by Kingstar Farm, the colt is a brother to the now Yulong-owned Group 3 The Vanity winner Wollombi, who herself has a filly foal by Diatonic at foot having been purchased by Yulong for $500,000 at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale in 2024.

Yulong’s only other purchase on the Gold Coast, Lot 764, also boasted some well performed siblings in the shape of Group 1 Caulfield Guineas hero Super Seth and Group 3 Moonga Stakes winner Wild Planet.

Having trained three winners on Saturday’s lucrative Magic Millions Raceday, including the quinella in the $3 million Magic Millions 2YO Classic, it was no surprise to see the Ciaron Maher Racing juggernaut bolstering its ranks with a host of shiny new purchases from the Gold Coast auction.

The leading trainer featured twice in the top 10 buyers standings, having purchased 11 yearlings in conjunction with David Redvers Bloodstock for $5,705,000 and another 11 yearlings under his own Ciaron Maher Bloodstock banner for an additional $3,220,000.

The most expensive of those was the $1.1 million paid for a colt by nine-time Group 1 winner and Cox Plate hero Anamoe, whose first crop of yearlings proved to be in insatiable demand across the five days of selling.

Leading sire honours, however, went the way of the late Champion Sire Snitzel, whose penultimate crop of Magic Millions yearlings yielded an astonishing six million-dollar lots. That sextet included the second foal out of Group 1-winning mare Krone, who was sold by Victorian outfit Rosemont Stud to James Harron Bloodstock’s Colt Partnership in conjunction with Tony Fung Colts for a cool $1.2 million.

Other notable results included an all-Victorian affair, with Three Bridges Thoroughbreds selling their Frankel filly out of US mare Lolloping for $825,000 to renowned Victorian bloodstock agent Sheamus Mills, who predominantly campaigns his horses in Melbourne with the Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr team.

Fellow Victorian horseman Matt Laurie, fresh from a breakthrough season courtesy of Group 1 winners Treasurethe Moment and Vinrock, was another involved at the pointy end of the market. In conjunction with Willannah Bloodstock, the Mornington-based trainer purchased a Zoustar filly for $900,000, an Anamoe filly for $800,000 and a Diatonic filly for $650,000, the latter of which is the first foal out of Group 1 Memsie Stakes heroine Snapdancer.

With many owners looking to cash in their VOBIS Platinum vouchers, a total of 235 yearlings had their buyer location listed as Victoria on the Magic Millions website, ranging in price from $10,000 to $2 million at an average of $254,962.

The strength of the sale continued into Sunday’s Book 2 session, where a filly by Yulong’s Blue Diamond Stakes-winning stallion Tagaloa topped proceedings when selling for $270,000.

The filly, who is out of a sister to another Blue Diamond winner in Extreme Choice, will carry the famous ‘Jenni’ moniker having been purchased by Tony and Lynn Ottobre’s Victorian breeding operation Cape Schanck Stud.