A son of Golden Slipper winner Mossfun wears the yellow jersey as the highest-priced lot after Day 1 of this year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
The colt by I Am Invincible sold for $400,000 more than any other yearling on the first of five days of selling when knocked down for $1.65 million on Tuesday.
The Emirates Park offering was bought by the father-and-sons training team of John, Wayne and Michael Hawkes, who prepared Mossfun to win the Golden Slipper.
“There’s a lot of similarities and he really does look like mum quite a bit, he’s just a bigger version,” Michael Hawkes said.
“We love his athleticism, he’s got a great attitude and wanted to work it and had that beautiful fluid walk.
“It doesn’t get much better than I Am Invincible out of a Slipper winner.”
Mossfun, a daughter of Mossman, won the 2014 Golden Slipper and was retired to stud the following year.
She has had two foals to race, including Dajraan, a son of Frankel who won twice in Europe before coming to Australia late in 2021 and won last year’s Group 3 Festival Stakes (1500m) at Rosehill.
The Hawkes family also train the filly by I Am Invincible that Mossfun had the year before her $1.65 million colt and Wayne Hawkes said the Emirates Park-owned filly has ability.
“We have the full sister at home and she’s a ripper like he is. She’s unraced and has done everything right,” he said of the filly who will race as Mathkhoora.
The Mossfun colt was one of three seven-figure lots on Day 1 of selling, falling between the Snitzel three-quarter-sister to Russian Conquest who was bought by Snowden Racing and William Johnson for $1.25m and the Zoustar filly out of Members Joy who went to Sheamus Mills for $1.1 million.
Day 1 also saw a Capitalist colt sell for $850,000, while Ciaron Maher paid $800,000 for a filly by Pierata from Loving Gaby, the daughter of I Am Invincible he prepared to win a William Reid Stakes and Manikato Stakes.
All up, just over $36 million in stock changed hands on Day 1, down around $4m on last year’s opening day but the average of $271,343 compared favourably with last year’s $272,044. The clearance rate of 82.5 percent was down on 91 percent.
The Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale continues on Wednesday when a sister to Sunlight and the first foal from Robert Sangster Stakes winner Spright, by I Am Invincible, are among the expected headline lots.