Horse sales are the most open secret society going: you can walk off the street and sit there and watch the chaos unfold, but trying to understand what’s really going on might take years.
People talk out of the side of their mouth, if they’re not walking away to do it on the phone. They communicate with nods, even just an eye movement. A little hand raised here, a head scratch there. The shrill of horses squealing and bid spotters squalling rises above the constant hum. Silence is golden, and only ever reached when an expensive horse walks into the ring.
Mostly, they don’t want you to know exactly what they’re doing until after they’ve done it.
“If you believe in voodoo, we put him in there,” said respected breeder Peter O’Brien with a laugh, pointing to the box Winx once stood in before being sold at the same sales.
The record-breaking I Am Invincible x Anaheed colt that sold for $2.7 million on day three of the Magic Millions sales with Segenhoe’s Peter O’Brien in the box used by Winx.
“We just didn’t tell anybody until afterwards.”
It says C5. To the layman, the code might best signify a position on a chessboard. But at the Magic Millions sales complex on the Gold Coast this week, it’s where you go if you want to make history.
O’Brien’s Segenhoe Stud is still basking in the record of selling an I Am Invincible colt out of Anaheed for $2.7 million on Thursday. It’s the most ever paid for a yearling at the Magic Millions. To make good on the expectation, O’Brien walked the horse into the same stall Winx once stood in to make it is home for the week.
“And he was sold 10 years to the actual day Winx was,” O’Brien said.
The colt’s spot is in a row of boxes named the Winx barn. The rest of the complex is adorned with graduates that have gone on to win group 1 races. In Secret only won her first major a couple of months ago, and already her insignia is everywhere.
“Katie [Page-Harvey] and Gerry [Harvey] are the greatest marketers in the game,” Newgate Field boss Henry Field said.
And they’ve had to be with a flailing economy. Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe would do well to avoid the Gold Coast this week, because if he caught any of the frenzy he might be inclined to deliver another eight straight interest rate rises.
Late on the fourth day, the average price was hovering at $300,000 a horse, well up on the $241,935 of last year. On top of the $2.7 million splurge to Coolmore on Thursday, the breeding giant went from buyer to vendor as they watched the hammer fall on a $2.5 million I Am Invincible x Booker colt on Friday.
Trainer Ciaron Maher bought him, and among the owners-in-waiting is Debbie Kepitis, who was part of the group that bought Winx for $230,000 and then raced her into history.
Coolmore’s I Am Invincible x Booker colt sold for $2.5 million at the Magic Millions sales on Friday.Credit:Luke Marsden
“The $230,000 might be a smaller price than $2.5 million, but to many people $230,000 is a lot of money,” Kepitis says. “We were fortunate to get Winx for that price. I think she was just a little bit overlooked, but no one overlooks them any more.
“And it’s lovely because there’s so many people who walk past and still ask about her. But you take pot luck. Racing is a luck game, so somewhere that you don’t think was going to be good, you might buy a good horse from there, so you go back there.”
As much as the industry wants to flout its staggering prices, it must also ask: is it becoming harder for the average mum and dad owner to be involved?
Australian racing is built on affordable ownership and widespread punter interest, unlike other parts of the world. Syndication companies are trying not to be squeezed out at big sales like the Magic Millions and, while micro-ownership opportunities are rising, so is the pointy part of the market. That might not necessarily always be a good thing.
“The top end is unaffected by what the economy is doing,” Maher said. “The middle to lower end will definitely be affected.”
Back at C5 on Friday, a horse is standing in his box with not a person in sight. He doesn’t know it’s Winx’s box. She’s moved on. The cameras, once honed on him as he smashed a record not even 24 hours old, are chasing the next top lot. The money keeps moving on, too.
Was it fate?
