3 minute read

Trio go to $200,000 for daughter of Capitalist at Magic Millions Adelaide Yearling Sale

Trainers Will Clarken and David Jolly and Suman Hedge teamed up at the Magic Millions Adelaide Yearling Sale on Tuesday to purchase a colt by Newgate Farm’s star first-season sire Capitalist (Written Tycoon) for $200,000. 

Catalogued as Lot 118 and offered by Emirates Park draft, the colt is out of winning Fastnet Rock (Danehill) mare Bleue Pepite, who was purchased for $10,000 by Alexia Fraser Bloodstock via the Magic Millions March Online Sale last week. 

Bleue Pepite is herself out of Group 2 winner Ballybleue (Peintre Celebre) making her a half-sister to Group 3 winner Think Bleue (So You Think). 

Further back this is the same pedigree as Group 1 winners and successful sires Flying Spur (Danehill) and Encosta De Lago (Fairy King). 

Hedge himself knows the family well having purchased the yearlings half-brother Ruban Bleu (Artie Schiller) with Lindsay Park for $80,000 at the 2017 Inglis Premier Yearling Sale. Ruban Bleu subsequently went on to win four times, earning $272,035 in career prize-money.  

“I was quite familiar with the family because I bought the half-brother, Ruban Bleu, with Lindsay Park a few years ago. I think we paid $80,000 for him and he’s been quite a useful horse, winning about $270,000 and he’s shown some talent,” Hedge told Racing & Sports Bloodstock. 

“The family itself goes back to some pretty important stallions in Flying Spur and Encosta De Lago so we thought the way Capitalist is going, he’s shown some really good signs with his first crop and, coming out of that family, he’s a colt to do a job for us. He also comes from good breeders as well. He had that kind of upside.

“Physically he’s a very strong horse. Quite muscular and developed for his age so he looks like he’s going to be very early. He has a good square hip on him, active, clean and has all the attributes that we look for in a two-year-old, so he was high on our list of priorities and we were really happy to get him.” 

Capitalist could not have made a better impression with his first runners this season, siring seven winners, headed by three stakes winners; Profiteer, Tycoon Humma and Kalashnikov, who landed the Black Opal Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) on Sunday. Capitalist is sitting at the top of the Australia’s first-season championship by both number of winners and earnings, $542,808 ahead of his nearest rival Shalaa (Invincible Spirit).  

Hedge said there was good competition on the top horses and he had to fight hard to secure the yearlings he wanted. 

“I think that it’s an interesting market,” said Hedge. “I think it’s very much a type orientated sale so horses which had competition on them obviously ticked all the boxes but there wasn’t the same degree of competition on horses from the stallion funds - there weren’t all of those buyers there - so a horse like him, I think he might have gotten competition on him from those groups at another sale. But, in saying that it was still a very buoyant market and the main trainers and bloodstock agents are all here so you still had to fight pretty hard to get the horses that you wanted.”

Of his business relationship with Will Clarken, Hedge said: “I’m just starting to develop a good business relationship with Will Clarken. He’s been very supportive of me this year. He’s given me some work in Sydney and again endorsed me here in Adelaide and I’m hopeful that we can have some success and it will be a long term thing. We are the same age profile and we want to build up our business together and hopefully it will work.

“We just focused on types so landed on the colts today but there are some fillies that we are also targeting for tomorrow. Really, just given the nature of the sale, we’ve tried to focus on good physiques and where possible proven stallions. With the unproven stallions that we looked at, we looked at the other attributes, like how athletic they were. But it’s been good because we have a similar taste for the horses that we are looking for, so it’s been pretty seamless and it’s worked out well.” 

One the first day of the sale, Capitalist also had a filly sell. Catalogued as Lot 218 and offered by Noorilim Park, the filly was purchased by Lindsay Park for $80,000 and she is the first foal out of placed Fastnet Rock mare Just Gorgeous, who is a daughter of multiple Group 2 winner Satinka (Stravinsky). Further back this is the same pedigree as dual Group 1 winners Rangirangdoo (Pentire) and Shout The Bar (Not A Single Doubt). 

Clarken, Jolly and Hedge also teamed to buy a colt by Widden Stud-based Your Song (Fastnet Rock) for $100,000, while they also parted with $70,000 for a colt by Alpine Eagle (High Chaparral). The trio’s total spend on the first day was $420,000. 

Catalogued as Lot 192 and consigned by Kambula Stud, the son of Your Song is the seventh living foal out of Listed-placed Octagonal (Zabeel) mare Hairpin, making him a half-brother to Listed winner Detours (Ad Valorem). 

Meanwhile the Alpine Eagle yearling was offered by Armidale Stud, where the stallion resides and he is the third live foal out of winning Lago Delight (Encosta De Lago) mare Tula, who is herself a half-sister to Listed winner Brainpower (Grand Royale). The colt was catalogued as Lot 58.

The trio finished the day as the third leading buyer having spent $420,000 on four yearlings.