Inglis Offers Variety of Quality at Chairman's Sale

Inglis has released its biggest Chairman's Sale catalog in five years and management at the auction house is confident the sale has the quality to match.

Elite-level mares entered for the premium breeding stock sale have been drip-fed to the market in recent months but it wasn't until last night that Inglis confirmed the 100-Lot line-up for the company's night of nights at Riverside, to be held May 4.

Along with the already announced entries of group 1 winners Montefilia, Icebath, Nimalee AUS), Graceful Girl, and the group 1-placed Swats That, the 2023 catalog also includes: 72 Lots that are either stakes horses or stakes producers; 43 mares that are pregnant on their first or second cover; 89 entries that are aged ten or younger; 32 fillies or mares that are totally Danehill free; Mares in foal to stallions such as Frankel , Gun Runner  , I Am Invincible , Snitzel , Extreme Choice, Zoustar , and Wootton Bassett , and;  A breeding right in Swettenham Stud sire Toronado .

The 2022 sale had 93 horses cataloged (100 after wild cards were added) compared to the initial 60, 55, and 53 lots cataloged, respectively in the preceding three years.

The Golden Slipper (G1) provided another reminder of the quality of mares offered through the Chairman's Sale when valuable colt Shinzo won the world's richest juvenile race. Coolmore, the sale's biggest buyer since its inception, bought the colt's dam Samaready in utero for AU$1.8 million in 2020.

Inglis Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch was adamant as to the high quality of the sale, and said: "Definitively, this is the best catalog of mares we've put together.

"My expectation would be that high-end breeding stock would hold its value pretty consistently year-on-year," he added. "This is stock for which there is tremendous competition right throughout the year through established sales, digital sales, private sales... I don't see any evidence of the major breeders or the emerging breeders being less ambitious in their pursuit of the good mares, and hopefully, they like what they see in the Chairman's catalog."

The retirement of Coolmore's Best Of Bordeaux, the impending retirement to stud of nine-time group 1 winner Anamoe to Darley, Mo'unga to Newhaven Park, and the possibility of Jacquinot joining them in the stallion ranks at Widden is likely to ensure breeders reinvest in mares.

Northern hemisphere-bred Cox Plate (G1) winner State of Rest , whose southern hemisphere breeding rights are held by Newgate Farm and its large group of partners, will also elicit demand for mares.

"There looks to be some pretty exciting first-season sires who seemed to have started really well," Hutch said. 

"Justify, Trapeze Artist, The Autumn Sun, Brave Smash, Grunt, Written By, and Harry Angel, they all seem to have sired at least one horse of significance, and Anamoe is going to be an important retiree and there's a number of other exciting potential retirees... so they will all contribute to the market.

"Then you take a horse like Proisir, and anyone involved in Proisir is probably going to want to upgrade the mares they've been breeding to him in the past few years because, on the evidence of the last few months or so, he'll be deserving of better mares.

"I think the drivers that traditionally motivate people in the broodmare market are going to be the same in 2023 as any other year."

Brought forward to Thursday, May 4, instead of the traditional Friday night timeslot, the Chairman's Sale will start at 4:30 p.m. at Inglis' Riverside Stables complex in Sydney.

"We wanted to work towards having between 90 and 110 mares in the sale this year," Hutch said. "We've got 100 in the main book and we've already got a number of supplementary committed to the sale, and I think we'll pick up some more between now and the final day for supplementary. It's an occasion, the sale, and I think it's a very good opportunity to showcase the mares."