$1.9m colt stuns the Magic Millions sale ring crowd

A Too Darn Hot colt from one of the great families in the Australian studbook put an exclamation mark on a red-letter day for Segenhoe Stud and Winx’s breeder John Camilleri when he shot to the top of the highest-priced list of this year’s Gold Coast Yearling Sale.

The bay colt out of A Time For Julia, a daughter of legendary producer Procrastinate, stunned the Magic Millions sale ring crowd when knocked down to Ciaron Maher for $1.9 million.

It took sale-leading honours from a $1.75m colt by Snitzel out of Warranty, who was also sold by Camilleri, who earlier in the day had a son of Zoustar and Villami sell for $1 million.

“We never, ever expected him to make that amount of money, but obviously he deserved it,” Segenhoe Stud general manager Peter O’Brien said of the Too Darn Hot colt.

“He (Camilleri) is a pleasure to deal with. He’s got some of the best mares in the country, breeds them to the best stallions and he deserves the results.

“He’s got three $1 million horses today and it’s a big day for him.”

Maher wasn’t shocked he had to be so aggressive to get the colt, wo had multiple bidders beyond $1 million.

“With the nice colts you always do, (we) probably had to go a little bit more than what we thought, but it was very competitive,” he said.

“He’s really well-bred, from a good farm and a good breeder.

“He’s a great physical, he’s got a really good mind on him and obviously ticks all the right boxes.”

Coolmore was the buyer of Camilleri’s Snitzel colt, who is out of a daughter of All Too Hard, while James Harron snapped up the Zoustar colt, who is related to the Too Darn Hot colt, with his second dam Galapagos Girl a half-sister to A Time For Julia.

He was one of two seven-figure buys in the middle part of Day 2 for Harron, who paid $1.6 million for a colt by Extreme choice out of Wanted Lady the lot before the $1.75m Snitzel colt.

Those four colts were among eight lots to sell for $1m or more on Day 2 with David Ellis buying a $1.3m son of Snitzel, Robbie Griffiths paid $1m for a filly by Ole Kirk, the same amount Yulong paid for a filly by I Am Invincible out of Vezalay.

The first foal from triple Group 1 winner Arcadia Queen also sold for $1 million, with the I Am Invincible colt knocked down to Hawkes Racing.

Those big ticket items played a key role in the sale gross rocketing beyond $100m – to $101,713,000 – with the average jumping to $291,441 with the clearance rate also increasing to 85.33 percent.