A colt by Home Affairs provided the highlight of a selective opening session of the Inglis Great Southern Weanling Sale June 11, selling for AU$330,000 (US$232,069, AU$1=US$0.70) as buyers showed clear appetite for the better-credentialed lots while remaining measured through the broader market.
Offered by Armidale Stud, the colt out of Myhro was purchased by Tamworth trainer Mel O'Gorman, Duncan McRae, and James Carolan, who said the partnership had been forced to stretch beyond its original valuation to secure him.
"There's plenty of buoyancy in the market when you're paying AU$330,000 for a weanling, but he's got the pedigree, so hopefully he can do the rest for us now down the track,'' Carolan said.
On selling the sought-after colt, Armidale's David Whishaw said: "You can breed a life-changing horse, or you can own a life-changing horse and something like this is huge for us.
"We brought him here knowing he was the right product, Home Affairs is very hot, and he's out of a Lonhro mare who's doing the job.
"We had a reserve of AU$150,000, and we disclosed that to anyone that asked, we're realistic vendors and we come here to sell.
"It's a huge result for (breeders) Ken and Jen Breese; to get a result like this for them is just huge."
The day's second-top lot was a colt by Shinzo out of Je Suis Belle, offered by Burnewang North Pastoral and again purchased by Stefan Pardi Bloodstock for AU$240,000, while a Ghaiyyath colt from Shadow Hill Thoroughbreds made AU$220,000 to Bromfield Park.
While the session produced solid competition at the upper end of the market, the gap between the average and median pointed to a more selective buying bench below that level. A total of 17 lots sold for AU$100,000 or more, a figure Inglis Victorian bloodstock manager James Price said was encouraging given 27 foals reached that mark across the whole sale last year.
"There are plenty of signs that the market is extremely bullish on the right horses," Price said.
"The clearance is short of where we would like it to be, but selectivity in the market has been a theme for the year, and it's very much a factor here."
From 160 cataloged lots, 137 were offered, with 91 selling for an aggregate of AU$4,597,000 (US$3,232,794). The positives were seen in the increase of the average, which closed at AU$50,516 (US$35,525), a rise from AU$45,357, and the median at AU$24,000 (US$16,878), a rise from AU$20,000, while the clearance rate sat at 66% at the close of trade
