The bushfire crisis that has consumed much of the South Coast of NSW since mid-December made going to the Gold Coast this year an impossibility for me, however the wonders of technology and modern social media mean you can almost cover the sale better from afar.
2020 Magic Millions Yearling Sale delivered record results and a strong clearance making for happy vendors, which has already been well covered so now I’m looking for a few things from left field.
Ugly Duckling Produces Swan
Much was made of the dazzling beauty and perfection of the $1.5million Written Tycoon filly from Karuta Queen bought by Sheamus Mills from the draft of Strawberry Hill Stud.
Her mother won the Magic Millions 2YO Classic and was a brilliantly fast racehorse, but at the 2010 Magic Millions Yearling Sale when Karuta Queen was offered by Turangga Farm there was little interest in the chubby, dumpy daughter of Not a Single Doubt.
She was bought by Glenn Williams for $30,000 making her the cheapest yearling by her sire at the sale and she was also the second cheapest yearling in the Turangga Farm draft which sold for up to $500,000.
It will be interesting to see how the future unfolds for the $1.5million filly, who has big shoes to fill if she’s to emulate the success of her mum.
Where’s the LGBQTI Bonus?
Magic Millions have gained a lot of mileage and positive exposure with their women’s bonus for eligible horses raced exclusively by women, which as far as I am aware is the only incentive of that type in the world.
This year’s winner Away Game is an example, raced by a syndicate of American women put together by Hannah Mathieson, who spent a brief time working in Australia for Ciaron Maher, Read about it here in a great story from Aushorse.
My question is in a world where gender is increasingly becoming a much broader spectrum than simply men and women, where is the bonus for the horse entirely owned by LGBQTI people and let’s not forget the Non Binary group!
If we wanted to encourage women to own racehorses, why not this crowd? There seems to be a lot of them and now is not the time to ignore them.
They have won the right to marry and now I think they deserve the right to race horses for exclusive gender specific bonus money just like women.
Why is the female gender so special it needs a ridiculous amount of money to be offered in order to race a horse?
Out of the Shadows
Arrowfield Stud’s Not a Single Doubt has spent his entire life living in the shadow of his barn mate Snitzel, the two sire sons of Redoute’s Choice retiring to stud within a year of each other.
Not a Single Doubt has done an amazing job given his starting fee of $13,750, but his achievements have always been overshadowed by the unbridled success of Snitzel, who has broken all sorts of records and become a household name.
This year, the tide turned at Magic Millions and Not a Single Doubt scored a small victory over Snitzel in posting an average of $344,531, with Snitzel averaging $312,381.
It may never happen again, but at MM 2020 Not a Single Doubt had the measure of Snitzel.
Bushfire Relief
Breeders got behind the bushfire relief cause in a big way and at the close of the sale it has been reported $1.1million was raised in aid of what has evolved as a catastrophic disaster for the entire country.
I had a taste of it on January 4 and after fleeing the Currowan fire that rolled over Daybreak Farm, my kids and I had an hour of thinking we’d be those people that have lost everything and where we live there are plenty of them.
After being allowed back we were relieved to find we were blackened around us, but unscathed thanks to the efforts of our local firefighting boys and the RFS.
What you grab in those last few minutes before you run for your life says a lot and in my case a family heirloom that has been in the family since 1899 was what I took giving no thought to the computer… turns out work and business is not what matters in life.
