Coolmore Strikes for Shout The Bar at Chairman's Sale

Dual group 1 winner Shout The Bar, sold for an Inglis Chairman's Sale record price of AU$2.7 million (US$1,909,341) May 6, will be among a star studded cohort of elite mares bound for Coolmore's prized first season sire Home Affairs later this year.

Coolmore Australia principal Tom Magnier, as he has done on numerous occasions in recent years, became the new owner of the Chairman's Sale's headline act during an enthralling evening elite breeding stock session.

There were five seven-figure mares sold during the four-hour Riverside Stables sale but it was, perhaps fittingly, Shout The Bar who lived up to the pre-sale expectation, setting a new Chairman's benchmark by exceeding the AU$2.5 million paid for Celebrity Queen last year, also by Magnier.

An AU$1 million ($707,314) opening bid was received for Shout The Bar before multiple breeding identities made large-stakes plays for the star lot, whose physique and athleticism led many pundits to label her the best looking mare to go on the market this year.

Japan's breeding supremo Katsumi Yoshida, who was bidding online, and Duncan Grimley, the eventual underbidder who was believed to be acting for Strawberry Hill Stud's John Singleton, were all on Shout The Bar as her price reached record numbers but it was Magnier, phone in hand to the eastern side of the auditorium, who won out.

A mare the Inglis bloodstock team chased hard to have sold at its Chairman's Sale, convincing the mare's trainers Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott and her ownership group headed by Francis and Christine Cook to offer her in Sydney as opposed to auction house rival Magic Millions.

"It's amazing and sad at the same time. She's been such a wonderful mare to us. To watch her around here the past few days, everyone has said she's just a queen, the way she stands there, she just poses, she's the Kim Kardashian of the racing world. She's just perfection," Francis Cook said.

"If she didn't bring her reserve (of close to AU$2 million, $1,414,685), we would have raced her on for another year, simple as that.

"We own a third of her and there were a lot of 5% owners here tonight in the room, it's life-changing for them. 

"To have something sell for that amount of money, they can go and put a deposit on a house with their share."

An AU$200,000 purchase ($157,820) by Waterhouse and Bott from the 2018 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, Shout The Bar has won five races from 18 starts—highlighted by her Tab Empire Rose Stakes (G1) win at Flemington and the Vinery Stud Storm Queen Stakes (G1) at Rosehill—and earned connections AU$1.344 million ($930,216) in prize-money. 

She is out of Drinks All Round, a three-time winner who was sold at the 2018 Chairman's Sale for AU$90,000 ($69,804) when carrying a full sister to Shout The Bar. 

The immediate reaction in the vendors' box from Brett Howard, who runs Glenesk Thoroughbreds with his wife Rachael and sold Shout The Bar on the owners' behalf, was relief when the hammer fell at AU$2.7 million.

"It is what you dream of and I suppose from our perspective, it's great to have horses like her in your draft, but they're also very valuable mares and you just don't want anything to go wrong," Howard said in the aftermath. 

"Rachael's at the farm and she does such a brilliant job. She doesn't miss anything, she watches them like a hawk to make sure everything goes right.

"There is a bit of stress involved when you've got a million-dollar-plus horse on your property, you just want to be able to get them to the sales in one piece and fingers crossed they get in foal."

Shout The Bar is expected to be given a final racing campaign during the Queensland Winter Carnival prior to her maiden mating to Home Affairs with Coolmore following a blueprint it has followed for stallions such as Justify   and Wootton Bassett .

"We're delighted to get her, she's a standout mare, and we want to buy the best mares for Home Affairs," Magnier said. 

"We spoke to Chris (Waller) this morning; the horse is in really good order ahead of his Royal Ascot trip. It's a big thing for a horse to go to Royal Ascot from here, it's a huge ask, but it's very exciting to have a horse like him. 

"To now get a mare like this is very exciting. There's an old saying, 'You need to breed to the best to get the best' and that's what we do."

Glenesk Thoroughbreds' Howard also sold the dam of this season's Anthony Cummings-trained Moet & Chandon Champagne Stakes (G1) winner She's Extreme, out of Keysbrook, for AU$825,000 ($584,159) to Kia Ora Stud, 11 months after buying her in an Inglis Digital Online Sale for just AU$60,000.