THE three day 2016 Inglis Easter Sale took place on 5, 6 and 7 April in Sydney, Australia and concluded with 432 yearlings selling for a gross of over $105 million to breeders and vendors with 49 lots realising prices of $500,000 or more.

Frankel had his first progeny step into an Australian auction ring on day 2, and Shadwell Stud’s agent Angus Gold had to go to $610,000 for lot 237, a filly out of South African Gr1 winner Chocolicious from Three Bridges Thoroughbreds.

Lot 237: Frankel x Chocolicious filly.

Australian Thoroughbred Bloodstock directed the mating of the mare in England, and the filly was subsequently born and raised in Victoria, sold in Sydney and will now be sent to South Africa for Mike de Kock to train and possibly take to Dubai later in her racing career.

Gold commented, “Frankel is the greatest horse I’ve had the pleasure of seeing on a racecourse, and anybody who has been around for a while would say the same. The mare herself was very tough and very fast. In South Africa she won a Group 1 as a two-year-old, and she’s by a stallion that Sheikh Hamdan bred himself in Kahal.”

On Day 3, Gold was able to strike, outbidding James Harron to purchase a son of Redoute’s Choice out of South African Champion National Colour (Lot 433) for $1.75 million on behalf of Shadwell Stud. Offered by Arrowfield Stud, the colt is the third consecutive yearling out of the mare that Shadwell have taken home from an Easter sale, with his brother, the Mike De Kock-trained Rafeef, who notched his third win on the trot under up and coming Callan Murray at the Vaal on Thursday.

Lot 433: Redoute’s Choice x National Colour colt.

“We’re here to buy good colts,” Gold. For the past four or five years we’ve been outbid on Wandjina and I wanted to buy Deep Field. I’m desperate to get Sheikh Hamdan a colt that can make a stallion in Australia,” said Gold. “We identified the top colts earlier in the week and I thought he was right up there. We have the first two out of the mare and both have above-average ability according to Mike. He was a beautiful quality horse and he behaved himself impeccably.”

The trainer commented:  “The colt by National Colour is one of the nicest specimens I’ve ever laid my eyes on.”

In total, the stable will be shipped 12 lots purchased by Sheikh Hamdan and three from Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Maktoum. The latter’s buys included a Street Cry colt of whom Mike said: “He’s an exciting prospect from the family of Noah From Goah.”

Lot 249: Street Cry colt.

 Lot 365: Medaglia D’Oro colt: Another good-looking purchase from Sheik Mohamed bin Khalifa Al Maktoum.