It was a day of staggering drama, global records and the most incredible bidding and theatre ever witnessed in a thoroughbred sales ring as the much anticipated daughter of Pierro and Winx set a world record price for a yearling filly at Riverside.
Lot 391 – as the Winx filly had become affectionately known in the lead-up to her sale – sold for a staggering $10m to Woppitt Bloodstock on Day 2 of the Easter Yearling Sale, having been offered in the Coolmore draft.
On a day of amazement at Riverside:
*The Pierro x Winx filly’s price of $10m eclipsed the previous world record for a yearling filly set in 2013 and decimated the Southern Hemisphere yearling record price of $5m
*The I Am Invincible x Booker filly sold for $3m, making her the second-most expensive filly ever sold in the Southern Hemisphere behind only the Pierro x Winx filly
*Both the Winx filly and Pierro filly were sold by Coolmore and played a significant role in them being crowned leading vendor, selling 32 lots for a gross of $27,615,000
*A total of 14 lots realised $1m or more today, taking the sale’s tally to 18 seven-figure lots
*The sale gross of $150,855,000 and average of $429,786 was a 9% and 11% respectively year-on-year increase
*Inglis’ Sale Day Live broadcast saw extraordinary global reach with almost 550,000 views between the Inglis website, Inglis Facebook page and YouTube Channel to almost 100 different countries.
The Pierro x Winx filly (pictured) was always going to attract significant global interest and it didn’t disappoint, with an incredible bidding duel in a full Riverside auditorium creating the most extraordinary theatre.
The room fell silent as the filly entered the ring but it was fireworks for the next three minutes as Woppitt Bloodstock’s Debbie Kepitis and Resolute Racing’s John Stewart traded bids ferociously before Kepitis came out victorious at $10m.
“I didn’t come here to buy this horse originally. We put her up for auction and then in the past few weeks, all of the family, we started to miss our ‘daughter/granddaughter’ so we just decided as best we could, if we could get her, we would,’’ an emotional Kepitis said post-sale.
“I am privileged to have been able to secure this filly on behalf of my family.
“She’s Australian forever and she’s going to be just fabulous. Thank you to everybody around the world who has taken this on board, it’s been thrilling to watch it and we’re lucky enough that we came out winners.’’
Coolmore’s Tom Magnier admitted he’s never witnessed anything like what he did at Riverside today.
“You wouldn’t see this anywhere else in the world,’’ Magnier said.
“You wouldn’t see the build-up, you wouldn’t see the hype and atmosphere today, I’ve never witnessed anything like it at any auction house around the world.
“It’s just the perfect story. I knew she was going to make a very high figure because somebody is buying history. She is a classic, a collectors’ item and there’s only one person who deserved this today and that’s Debbie.
“It’s a dream story. I don’t think you can put a value on a filly like that. It’s just incredible, I’m delighted.’’
On being leading vendor for the Sale, Coolmore’s John Kennedy added: “It’s a great feeling. It’s an honour to be entrusted with some of the best bloodstock in the world by some of the best clients that are friends of ours.
“It’s a real team effort. We’re all just truly overwhelmed by the whole thing. It’s a fantastic result and something to cherish.’’
Today’s second top lot was an I Am Invincible x Booker filly of Coolmore’s, which sold to Resolute Racing’s John Stewart, who was under-bidder on the Winx filly earlier in the day.
She was one of six lots purchased by Stewart over the past two days.
“What a phenomenon. It’s fantastic that our two continents were connected through this sale in a situation like this,’’ Stewart said.
“I flew out to Australia a few weeks ago to look at these horses and while I absolutely wanted to buy the Winx filly, I also absolutely wanted to buy this Booker filly, she was my other favourite filly on the farm at Coolmore when I went there so to be able to buy her today at Inglis is fantastic.
“I’m very thankful to have met the Inglis team over the past couple of weeks and it’s been a lot of fun and hopefully I’ve bought some great horses to get our program started in Australia.’’
Kennedy added: “She’s always been a special filly, we’ve always held her in very high regard and we knew coming here she was going to get awful lot of attention but to reach that height, it wasn’t expected.
“When you bring those quality products to a sale like Easter, the results happen.
“I don’t think anyone’s every witness anything like what we saw today, it got world-wide attention, the tweets, the media, the text messages, the WhatsApp groups, the phone calls, it just hasn’t stopped all week. A lot of people got up in the middle of the night to watch the broadcast from around the world, it’s just a fantastic result for everyone involved.’’
Inglis Bloodstock CEO Sebastian Hutch was equally amazed at what he witnessed today.
“It was a real privilege for our company to have the opportunity to offer a horse of her magnitude and for it to play out the way it has and to facilitate this scale of interest that we’ve had has been incredible,’’ Hutch said.
“Today was a day the Australian industry can be proud of. To have every major television network, every major newspaper, so many national radio stations here at Riverside, the images and vision from today that are going around the world paints our industry in a magnificent light and I’m really proud that we have helped play some small role in that.
“This year’s Easter Sale will go down most likely as the second best in history, I mean an average of almost $430,000 is extraordinary, a gross of over $150m, they’re numbers we couldn’t have dreamed about but what it means is a lot of breeders and vendors are going home happy and I’m delighted with that.
“It would be remiss of me not to give a special thanks to the ownership group of the Winx filly – the Kepitis, Tighe and Treweeke families – for entrusting Inglis with her sale today and I hope we did them proud.’’
