Written Tycoon flexed his muscle late on Day 1 at this year’s Inglis Premier Yearling, producing the highest-priced lot of a record day’s trade.
The Gilgai Farm-raised colt, who is from the Encosta de Lago mare Soorena, the dam of Newmarket Handicap winner The Quarterback, was bought by Hawkes Racing for $675,000.
That was the same price as Golden Rose and Caulfield Guineas winners Ole Kirk, a son of Written Tycoon sold by Gilgai to the Hawkes family at Premier.
“Whenever you’re going to buy a horse off Gilgai you know you’re going to have to pay a premier because he’s a premium breeder, it’s as simple as that,” Wayne Hawkes said.
“I only saw this horse for the first time during the week, but my father might have snuck up to Gilgai two weeks ago and came home and said, ‘there’s a cracking colt up there and he’ll be going home (with us).
“He’s just a beautifully-balanced horse with a fat pedigree.”
The Written Tycoon colt became the third most expensive product of Soorena, who played her part in the record price paid for a yearling at Premier when her son of I Am Invincible, who races as Octane, sold for $1.4 million in 2017.
She had another son of I Am Invincible, now known as Born A Warrior, sell for $1.4 million at Inglis Easter in Sydney the following year.
The Quarterback (Street Boss) was a $120,000 buy at Premier in 2012.
The Written Tycoon colt became the sixth half-million-dollar lot on a day that generated a record day’s trade for the major Melbourne offering and saw the average rise significantly percent on last year.
Yarraman Park’s I Am Invincible colt, who is off to Hong Kong after being sold to Craig Rounsefell, sold for $550,000, the same price as Bon Ho paid for a colt by Snitzel.
Snitzel also had one of the day’s three $520,000 lots, a colt who sold to TFI Qld, while Deep Field and Dundeel were the other stallions to produce colts to sell for that amount.
The day’s gross of $32,270,000 was up more than $3m on last year’s $29,120,500, with 265 lots catalogued on each day, while the Day 1 average of $162,980 dwarfed last year’s overall sale figure of $139,284.
That 2021 average number was up more than $12,000 on the 2020 number of $127,259.
Sunday’s median of $140,000 was up on last year’s overall sale figure of $105,000.
Inglis’s chief executive of bloodstock, Sebastian Hutch, was thrilled with the way things have kicked off.
“We were expecting the sale to be up, but we’re pleasantly surprised to the extent with which it’s up,” Hutch said.
“I think the most extraordinary thing is the variety of buyers. If you go through who bid today, there’s hardly a major participant in Australian racing who didn’t either buy or bid on a horse today.
“Big ticket lots and expensive lots are fantastic, but in some respects this sale and the way the sale has played out is a far better indicator of the strength of the market and the strength of the industry.”
Gilgai was the opening day’s leading vendor by average, with four lots selling for $1,480,000 at an average of $370,000, while Ciaron Maher Racing spent more money than any other buyer, splurging $1,330,000 across eight yearlings, and TFI’s $396,667 average was the highest of all buyers who bought at least three lots.