3 minute read
The Group 1 winner will be offered unreserved to dissolve a partnership.
Oakleigh Plate (Gr 1, 1100m)-winning mare Booker (Written Tycoon) is the latest high-profile name to be locked in for the Inglis Chairman's Sale at Riverside Stables on May 8.
The daughter of Written Tycoon (Iglesia) will be offered for unreserved sale to dissolve a racing partnership – following her Autumn campaign with trainer Gerald Ryan.
Out of the Flying Spur (Danehill) mare Noondie - who sold for $600,000 to Mitchell Bloodstock at last year's Chairman's Sale - Booker has won four of her 21 career starts which has seen her accumulate $856,150 in career prize-money.
"I've always bought and raced fillies and I think of the 13 Group 1 winners Midge and I have had, she's probably the nicest type we've had, Mannerism and the others were good sorts but Booker is just outstanding," co-owner Barrie Griffiths said.
Booker was purchased by Barrie Griffiths for $230,000 at the 2016 Inglis Premier Yearling Sale from the draft of Mill Park Stud.
"I'm good friends with her co-breeder Bill Rigg and as soon as I saw her I wasn't going to miss her, she was athletic but just so powerful – people will only have to look at her now and see how well she's constructed.
"I went way beyond my normal price bracket to secure her for $230,000 because I thought so much of her in terms of her physique and it's been both satisfying and a thrill for Booker to fulfil her Group 1 looks on the track."
A winner over 1100 metres on debut at Flemington as a 2YO for Mathew Ellerton and Simon Zahra, Booker then ran second in the National Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) at her only other juvenile start.
Her three-year-old season saw her defeat top-class mares Shoals (Fastnet Rock) and Catchy (Fastnet Rock) in the Thousand Guineas Prelude (Gr 2, 1400m), as well as a narrow second to champion sprinter Merchant Navy (Fastnet Rock) in the McNeil Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) and fourth to Russian Revolution (Snitzel) in a blanket finish to the 2018 Oakleigh Plate.
Her career highlight came in her four-year-old season when she defeated 17 rivals, including Nature Strip (Nicconi), Viddora (I Am Invincible) and Spright (Hinchinbrook), to take out the 2019 Oakleigh Plate at Caulfield.
Booker has since been transferred to the Rosehill stables of Gerald Ryan to concentrate on a Sydney Autumn Carnival campaign, where she will likely tackle the TJ Smith (Gr 1, 1200m) at Randwick on April 4.
"She's a lovely mare, really strong, sound and correct," Ryan said.
"She won a trial at Rosehill in great fashion but we will see what the weather does before deciding on where we target her – it's likely to be the TJ Smith at Randwick or the Star Kingdom Stakes a week earlier at Rosehill."
Griffiths said Booker's move to Sydney was in order to give breeders and agents a chance to see her before she's offered at Riverside Stables on the evening of May 8.
"I will be sad to see her go – if I was a breeder I would never sell her – but we race fillies and the other owners aren't breeders either so now that she's rising six, it's an ideal time to offer her unreserved to the marketplace."
Booker joins the likes of Group 1 winners In Her Time (Time Thief), Unforgotten (Fastnet Rock), Arabian Gold (Dubawi) and Volks Lightning (Volksraad) catalogued for the boutique auction in May.
The Chairman's Sale will once again be conducted under a 0 per cent sales commission structure.
