From horse trainers to cattle kings: the Magic Millions Gold Coast March Yearling Sale

Cover image courtesy of Magic Millions

Barry Bowditch has hardly caught his breath ahead of the Magic Millions Gold Coast March Yearling Sale. He’s hopped from Hobart to Perth to Adelaide in as many weeks, and you’d forgive him if he wasn’t sure what part of Australia he’s standing on.

“Just one to go now,” he said, chatting with TDN AusNZ. “It’s been a really crazy few weeks.”

Bowditch is back in Queensland for what is coined the ‘QTIS sale’. The Magic Millions Gold Coast March Yearling Sale, which is hosted around the QTIS Jewel Raceday, is a critical event for Queensland’s everyday breeders and buyers.

It’s not a sale that pretends to pitch high or dazzle with seven figures; it’s the workhorse on the Magic Millions calendar.

“This is the bulk of the market,” Bowditch said. “The middle to lower end is where most of the horses are sold in this industry. It’s important to keep these vendors viable to give them reason to continue to reinvest and make themselves better.

“This sale in recent years, and certainly over the last five years, has traded very strongly. Outside the year where COVID hit, it’s been an extraordinary sale for local breeders and it’s been a launchpad for two of Australia’s most up-and-coming sires in Spirit Of Boom and Better Than Ready.”

The figures on the March Yearling Sale read well.

Since 2019, the numbers of horses catalogued has risen steadily from 392 to 427 last year. The aggregate has gone from just under $10 million in 2019 to a high of $14.5 million in 2021, and last year’s figure of $12,562,000 was almost as good.

The clearance rate for this sale, bar COVID’s 2020, has been no less than 82 per cent the last four years, and the average last year of just under $40,000 was a rise on most other years bar 2021 (when it was $44,329).

This week, the March catalogue is slightly down on numbers with 388 horses entered. The last time this figure occurred was in 2019, when 392 were offered. However, like any year, there are varying reasons for that and the metrics that Bowditch puts on this sale are based on its audience.

“I’m very hopeful we’ll just clear the decks,” he said. “The vendors here in Queensland will be genuine. They’ll want to get horses sold and it’s up to us to have as many people here as possible to facilitate that.

“Putting metrics on is probably something I’m not thinking of doing because the industry is in great shape. Prizemoney is very strong when it comes to what these horses are going to race for in the next few years and it’s not going anywhere, so anyone who’s in the game or in a position to be part of the game should be investing. There’s opportunity to be had and value to be found.”

QTIS is gold

The March Yearling Sale will take place on Monday and Tuesday off the back of the QTIS Jewel, which was run and won by the very smart Mishani Royale (Kobayashi) at Doomben on Saturday.

The timing is no coincidence. The QTIS Jewel was worth $500,000 all up, $300,000 to the winner, and the race’s profile has crept slowly skywards in recent years as the QTIS bonus scheme has blossomed.

“The QTIS scheme, more than any other in Australia, is an incentive,” Bowditch said. “It pays to first, second and third, and horses get a discounted nomination to the Magic Millions Race Series.

“This is a state that’s got a lot of two- and 3-year-old racing week in, week out, and if I was willing to race a horse in Queensland with a Queensland trainer, I probably wouldn’t shop at another sale. This is a sale that gives people the incentive and bonuses and fruits to make the game viable.”

Jeff Kruger, the studmaster of the Warwick-based Lyndhurst Stud Farm, isn’t arguing with that. This week, he has the largest draft in the March catalogue with 38 horses on offer and, in his eyes, QTIS is king.

“QTIS is the only incentive scheme in Australia that pays to third place,” he said. “If you win a race with BOBS, for example, only the winner gets the incentive, whereas QTIS pays a percentage on top of the prizemoney down to third place, and it also now goes into 4-year-old and older horses.”

Kruger said it’s taken a while for the QTIS scheme to flourish, but it’s going gangbusters these days and actively targeted by Queenslanders.

“A lot of people thought QTIS was going nowhere and they sat back and laughed at it, but no one’s laughing now that your two- and 3-year-olds are racing for up to $85,000 every Saturday in town,” he said. “Fillies are racing for even more, and not just in metropolitan areas but across all of Queensland. We have trainers now that will come to us at this sale only to look at our fillies.”

While dozens of the lots on offer this week are BOBS eligible, and 11 are Super VOBIS-nominated and/or VOBIS Sires progeny, all are paid-up for the first QTIS instalment. A total of 16 are QTIS fully paid.

Also, there is the added incentive of the Breedback program, which allows Queensland breeders to use an interstate stallion in a particular breeding season as long as that mare returns to a Queensland sire the following year.

“If I send a mare to a New South Wales stallion, as long as that mare comes back to Queensland the following year, the interstate progeny will be eligible for QTIS,” Kruger said.

“Interstate progeny under breed-back have to pay double the nomination to become QTIS, but as of next year, Queensland breeders won’t have to pay anything to be in the QTIS scheme. It will be paid for by Racing Queensland, but the breed-back horses will still have to pay their way in.”

Kruger has used the breed-back program extensively and said it’s been really useful.

“It may appear that you’re getting away from the Queensland-bred product, but the whole idea is that the mare is back in foal to a Queensland stallion,” he said.

Among the Lyndhurst Stud Farm draft, Lot 160 is a top example of the breed-back program. The Nicconi filly from Seamagic (NZ) (Ocean Park {NZ}) was a New South Wales mating and she’s BOBS-eligible, but she’s among almost all the horses paid up in the first instalment for QTIS.

“She’s a lovely filly,” Kruger said. “She’ll sell particularly well as a breed-back because she’s got the beauty of being QTIS and BOBS eligible, and she’ll suit those trainers that frequent Queensland or race just over the border.”

Kings in grass castles

The blue-collar nature of the March Yearling Sale can be deceptive because it has, in recent renewals, unearthed very good racehorses. Buffering (Mossman), Spirit Of Boom and the Group 1-winning Apache Chase have all emerged from respective catalogues.

“We rely on the local market for this sale,” Bowditch said. “It’s a little bit like Perth. We’re very reliant on what our locals do and it will be up to the local market to ensure the sale is a success.

“But in saying that, we’ve got BOBS and VOBIS horses in the catalogue and we’ve marketed this sale interstate as well as internationally. We’re hoping to have a good trademark of Ready to Run buyers here from the Asian market to facilitate their orders.”

Bowditch said that the local representation won’t just mean southeast Queensland. It will mean all areas of the vast state.

“There’ll be a lot of folk from the country and out west coming here,” he said. “Those guys can buy a horse at a reasonable entry point because the average on this sale last year was just under $40,000.”

Kruger is well-versed on the demographics of the March Sale also. He doesn’t stress if inspections are low leading into the first day of trade because a lot of his frequent buyers are coming down from cattle country in the north and west, and they’re either at the races over the weekend or on the highway.

“You get a lot of the regional buyers here from places like central Queensland and Far North Queensland, and they come here in groups,” Kruger said. “I think they're supported by Racing Queensland and Magic Millions to come down together.

“They generally lob on the Sunday or the morning of the sale, and quite often if they’re people you know, they’ll look at what you suggest because they haven’t had the time to do the groundwork. And those regional areas represented are often graziers, and when the cattle industry is going good, they’ll come here and spend at the top end of things.”

Kruger is certain there are a number of quality-riddled horses in this year's catalogue, and horses that for some reason or other didn’t make it into a January catalogue. In his draft, Lot 310 is one such.

This Better Than Ready filly from the Danzero mare Coogee Coozifa is a half-sister to the Group 3-placed Oink (Sebring), and, via second dam Mer Du Sud (Ire) (Bluebird {USA}), this is the family of the G1 Hong Kong Mile winner The Duke (Danehill {USA}) and G1 Hong Kong Sprint winner Sky Field (Deep Field).

“Lot 310 was actually here in January but she never went through the ring,” Kruger said. “She was cast in the stall and she was lame on the day, so we had to put a line through her. I’m expecting her to be within the top five lots of the catalogue.

“She’s a super filly in our eyes and certainly the pick of the draft, and it was only misfortune in the context of January that she ended up here.”

There’ll be a few stories like this among Monday and Tuesday’s trade, horses that were or should have been in the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale were it not for bad luck.

It’s the reason why this sale has dug out the graduates that it has in the past, and why it’s one of the best-value and most important of yearling auctions to Queenslanders.