The 2020 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale won’t be forgotten in a hurry, and for a whole host of different reasons!
Conducted online due to the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, the latest renewal of Australia’s most revered thoroughbred bloodstock auction ventured into unknown territory last week, yet came out the other end being hailed as a major success under unprecedented circumstances — and with Sledmere Stud universally recognised as playing a major role.
The long and the short of it all is that the Covid-19 affected Inglis Easter Yearling Sale still managed to sell 228 Lots for a gross of $70,675,500 (at the time of writing), and that the Sledmere Stud consignment wrote no less than $4,745,000 of the figure — and included the $1.8 million top-seller!
Certainly, it’s probably safe to say that in the 100-year long history of Sledmere Stud, none of its previous owners have gone into an Easter Yearling Sale with a similar sense of the unknown. And yet the Easter Yearling Sale of 2020 proceeded to exceed all expectations.
By the end of the week of the online auction, all 10 Lots made available for sale had been successfully sold — nine when they were in the ‘ring’. The fact that Sledmere Stud sold the magnificent first foal of First Seal (by champion sire Snitzel) on behalf of our great clients China Horse Club to Tom Magnier, principal of Coolmore Australia, for $1.8 million obviously highlighted a mementous 48-hour period of trading.
Interviewed by TDN Aus/NZ in the aftermath, stud principal Treen Murphy reflected: “Obviously we faced some very unusual challenges, unlike anything we’ve come across before. And you certainly hope that you won’t ever see another crisis like it. It’s affected what everybody does all around the world, and we were no exception in our industry. But we were lucky to come out the other side with a successfully staged sale.
“For us, the results were absolutely incredible. They were some of the greatest results we’ve had in the seven years that we’ve owned and operated the property by ourselves. At the beginning of that time, we set ourselves a few major goals for our first 10 years. We wanted to break into the top 10 vendors at a sale, which we’ve done, and then the top five – we’ve done that too. And then to sell the top lot at the Inglis Easter Sale this year, that was another big one on our list. So we’ve achieved a lot of our long-term goals already, and done it much more quickly than we’d ever imagined.”
Treen added: “It was a spectacular sale and really uplifting for all of us. It’s great for all of our clients, but also for our whole team who have all put in a huge amount of work.
“I thought the market at the Easter Sale was exceptional for horses around the $300,000 bracket and above. Under that mark, they possibly suffered a little bit. We just didn’t get the normal traffic that we would in a traditional sale at the complex. A number of syndicators weren’t able to be there selecting horses to syndicate, and some local buyers and lower-level trainers weren’t really involved either. The absence of those sorts of buyers certainly affected the market, particularly at the lower levels.
“As vendors, we had to be realistic about our expectations and our reserves, and we had to be willing to meet the market. We did that, and from that point on is where the magic happened for us.”
As Treen said in the interview, the 2020 Easter Yearling Sale and its results involved a great amount of work on behalf of some very valued clients, and we celebrate the results we achieved with each and every one of them. And in so doing, we are truly gratefully for the confidence placed in the bloodstock we prepared by the individual buyers of the horses we consigned.