‘We’re gobsmacked’: Grenville on cloud nine after record-breaking results

Cover image courtesy of Magic Millions

Few vendors will be walking away from this week’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale as delighted as Grenville Stud, who brought three yearlings across the Bass Straight to the mainland and sold all three for an impressive average of $578,333 - a figure which currently has them top of the vendor tree by the average metric.

That is a truly phenomenal effort from a farm with far less resources than some of the major outfits in the Hunter Valley, and McCulloch could hardly contain his excitement after the final of Grenville’s three lots sold to Peter Moody Racing for $675,000 early in Friday’s fourth session.

A daughter of Exceed And Excel out of the six-time winning I Am Invincible mare Galway Girl, the filly was bred by Grenville and had been extremely popular from the moment she stepped foot on the Magic Millions sales complex.

“We’re gobsmacked,” McCulloch told The Thoroughbred Report. “She’s an absolutely beautiful filly and I’ve never had a horse that we’ve taken to a sale where you can tell that everyone who looked at her loved her during first inspections.

“There weren't people who pulled her out and then said thanks and put her away quickly, everyone had a good look at her, and we just knew after the first day that 95 per cent of the people who looked at her were going to come back and have another look at her.

“As it turned out that eventuated, she had an unbelievable amount of second looks, so our expectations rose from when we first came here. But still, we never imagined that she would make that sort of money.”

How the filly’s dam, Galway Girl, came to be in Grenville’s ownership is a remarkable story, one in which McCulloch’s father Graeme played a pivotal role having purchased her and trained her for five of her six career victories.

“We’re very fortunate to have her,” McCulloch said. “She was in an Inglis Digital catalogue, but she was actually listed in the broodmare section, not the race filly section.

“Dad did his research and that was the one mare he picked out in that catalogue that he wanted to buy. We actually underbid on her, she made $25,000 and we bid $22,500, so I moved on, but dad didn’t. He went back that night, watched more of her race replays and thought that we should have gone more on her, so we actually contacted the gentleman who bought her, Denis Hanley, and we offered him $30,000 for her.

“He came back to us quite quickly and said that he was happy to take a quick profit, so we got her home and put her into work as we felt there was plenty of racing left in her. She had eight or nine starts for us and she won five of those, including her last two races before going off to stud. She raced on the Sunday, headed off to the Hunter Valley on the Tuesday and was in foal three or four days later to Exceed And Excel.

“She’s just been a delight of a mare for us, she’s never given us a problem and neither has this filly. She has a wonderful nature and has been a real favourite of ours and all the team at home.”

Taking a punt

Having improved her race record considerably, McCulloch opted to call time on Galway Girl’s racing career following back-to-back victories at Devonport in August 2021.

Such was their belief in the mare, a very quick decision was made to send her to big-name stallion Exceed And Excel, which wasn’t without risk given that she only costs Grenville $30,000.

“Galway Girl is a beautiful type of mare with a lovely temperament, and she was a very consistent, honest racehorse,” McCulloch said.

“We felt that she had a good opportunity to be a good longer-term broodmare prospect, so we made the decision to send her to Exceed And Excel.

“That’s the most we’ve ever spent on a service fee at $120,000 plus GST, which was a big investment for us, especially for a first foal, but as soon as the foal was born there was confirmation that we’d made the right decision.

“From day one she was outstanding. We sent the mare back to the Hunter Valley to get covered again and Dave Morrissey at Cannon Hayes Stud, who looks after our mares, agreed with our assessment of her that she was just outstanding.”

Following the birth of her Exceed And Excel filly, Galway Girl was sent to Newgate Farm’s first-season sire Stay Inside and has subsequently produced a ‘very, very good’ filly by the G1 Golden Slipper-winning sire - so good, in fact, that Grenville opted to send the mare straight back to Stay Inside this season.

Friday’s $675,000 windfall came less than 48 hours after Grenville set a new benchmark for their highest-priced yearling ever sold, with their Wootton Bassett (GB) colt out of Tiare (Flying Spur) - making him a half-brother to reigning The Everest champion Think About It (So You Think {NZ}) - selling to Coolmore’s Tom Magnier for $900,000.

Despite selling for considerably more than Friday’s Exceed And Excel filly, McCulloch took just as much satisfaction, if not more, from the sale of the latter, given that his expectations were considerably lower as she headed into the ring.

“Coming up here we knew the Wootton Bassett, being a half to Think About It, was going to be very well-received and sell well, which he did,” he said.

“To get $900,000, that’s a big record for us. Our previous highest sale was $550,000 for a Deep Field in Melbourne in 2021.

“He marginally exceeded our expectations that colt, but at the end of the day he’s by Wootton Bassett, who has been exceptionally well-received, and is a half to an Everest-winning dual Group 1 winner, so he deserved to make that sort of money.

“Whereas this filly, while she’s been admired all week, she well and truly exceeded our expectations.”

A tragic loss

There is a sad precursor to the Tiare story, with Grenville tragically losing the mare they purchased for $150,000 at the 2021 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale in July of last year due to a tear in her diaphragm.

Results this week, including selling the final foal out of Tiare, have at least gone some way to easing the pain felt by her untimely loss, which came just as Think About It was announcing himself as one of the most exciting horses in the country.

“It was devastating,” McCulloch recalled. “At the point we lost her, Think About it was on the rise and had only been beaten once.

“You don’t want to lose any mares, but she was certainly the last one we wanted to lose. We just can’t afford to buy mares of that calibre, and for us to get the pedigree updates we were getting with Think About It, we were pinching ourselves.

“This game is a great leveller. You think you’re going well one minute and then something happens and brings you straight back down to earth.

“The sales this week make it all worthwhile. We couldn’t be happier.”

McCulloch also couldn’t be happier with the homes that Grenville’s three yearlings have found this week, with the Wootton Bassett filly heading to the Chris Waller stable after being purchased by Coolmore’s Tom Magnier, while the Exceed And Excel filly and the $160,000 Bivouac colt will both be on a float the Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman stable.

Such stellar results will certainly give Grenville the confidence to bring more horses across to mainland auctions in the coming years, but only if they fit the right profile according to McCulloch.

“We’ve had good luck previously with Inglis in Melbourne and obviously this week has been phenomenal,” he said.

“I think you’ve got to have the right horses to bring them over, and we knew we did this year.

“We’ve got some nice foals on the ground at home that we need to make sure we take to the right sale, because if you don’t come here with the right horses, you won’t get the right result.”