Australasia Crown Jewel Inglis Easter Sale
Though supplanted as Australia's highest-grossing yearling sale by Magic Millions' week-long Gold Coast yearling sale in Queensland in January (grossing AU$168 million), William Inglis & Son's Sydney Easter yearling sale is still the crown jewel of the vibrant Australasian yearling market.
This year's edition, held at the sales company's new AU$140 million complex (complete with hotel—walk out of the lobby into the sales ring) just beside Warwick Farm Racecourse, returned an average of AU$347,634 for 335 reported sales through Book 1. Adding in 51 Book 2 horses sold at the end of Book 1's three-day session (and included in the same catalog), the Sydney Easter Sale grossed AU$122,347,600 (US$94,364,471), for an overall average of AU$316,902 ($244,468).
Comparing Book 1 to the previous year's session, with 11% more yearlings cataloged, the gross edged up 6% from 2017, though the average was off by 2% from last year's AU$354,935, and the median slipped 4% to AU$250,000 from AU$260,000. The clearance rate from the catalog dipped to 70% from last year's 76%, betraying a certain softness in the sale's 'middle market'.
In comparison with Magic Millions' astonishing 80.5% clearance rate from their week-long catalog (892 sold/1105 cataloged), Inglis's 72.2% rate for the whole three-day sale (Books 1 & 2) seemed to bring a consensus that because this sale is the last major yearling sale of the season—whereas Magic Millions is the first—buyers of just a yearling or two, and even the big syndicates, had already fired a lot of their bullets.
Of course, North American and even European auction companies (which often operate at a 10% higher clearance rate than North American sales) can only drool at the prospect of selling even 72% of the horses cataloged. Although, to be fair, Tattersalls' October Book 1, the leading yearling sale in Europe, sold 70-72% of their yearlings cataloged in each of the last four years.
Two factors, which I alluded to in my first dispatch from New South Wales, underpin the robust health of the Australasian yearling market.
The first is the prize money structure in New South Wales, which was largely authored by Arrowfield Stud's John Messara during his tenure as Chairman of Racing NSW from 2011-16 and which includes the two-weekend Championships races that now bookend the Easter Sale.
When we open the Easter catalog and see that Hip 1, a Redoute's Choice filly bought by Shadwell Stud Australasia for AU$550,000 ($422,565), is a half sister to a listed stakes winner who won three races and AU$446,270, that tells us something about prize money in Australia.