News

Extraordinary demand for inaugural online Godolphin draft

10th Jun 2020

The first Godolphin draft to be offered online has highlighted another multi-million dollar Inglis Digital sale, with the 17-strong offering realising an incredible $909,000 gross at an average of $53,471.

It highlighted a buoyant June (Early) Online Sale, the 340-strong catalogue posting a gross of more than $3.1 million and 85% clearance.

The top lot of the sale came from the Godolphin draft with last start Rosehill winner Esperance (Bernardini), purchased by Hong Kong-based A Value Consulting Limited for $175,000.

A Value Consulting Limited’s Director Dr. Alan Lee said he had a local Warwick Farm contact inspect the 5YO gelding on his behalf.

“Esperance was bought for a client who is keen to race him at the top level in Macau, where we expect him to be a very competitive sprinter and Danny Wong is the trainer we have in mind,” Dr. Lee said.

“A Value Consulting Limited has bought a number of horses off Inglis Digital – including Earth Song in the May catalogue – it’s a very good platform for all trainers and horse owners and you know the price will be fair to all parties.

“As an overseas agent especially, it was very helpful that Godolphin provided all vet history and extensive information on each horse.”

The second top lot of the Godolphin draft was The Driller, a 3YO son of Sea The Stars and G1 Oakleigh Plate winner Shamal Wind (an Inglis Premier graduate), who sold to Heinrich Constructions for $130,000.

“We had him checked out by one of the vets at the Inglis complex and he looks to be a nice horse, not overly big but quite athletic and seems light on his feet,” Hoss Heinrich said.

“He’ll come up to Gillian’s [Heinrich] stable and he looks a progressive type being a lightly-raced 3YO by Sea The Stars, we’re going to race him ourselves.

“He’s won a Class 1 and is a 62-rater, coming off an unlucky second last week at Geelong, so he will be easy to place in QLD.

“We purchased Mogador from Godolphin a few years ago and we won our money back so we hope we have a similar result with The Driller.”

3YO Warwick Farm winner Montserrat (Not a Single Doubt), 3YO filly Jazirat (Shooting to Win) and 3YO maiden Shielded (Helmet) each sold for $70,000 to Darby Bloodstock, Dean Watt Bloodstock (FBAA) and Yargi Racing respectively.

Other buyers from the Godolphin draft included Anderson Racing, Anthony Newing, MBH Bloodstock (Mitchell Beer), Litt Racing, Sam Kavanagh Racing and Tim Dumbrell.

Godolphin Bloodstock Manager Jason Walsh said his team was delighted with the outcome in what is the operation’s first foray into the online market.

“It was a very strong sale; we’d been awaiting our participation in the online market for a long time obviously but we’re very pleased with these results today,” Walsh said.

“Given it was our first time participating in the online platform we weren’t really sure what to expect but we had been monitoring the performance of the Inglis Digital sales for a number of seasons now and it’s proven to be very successful, so we had every confidence in the system.

“The work that both the Inglis team and Godolphin team have put into this sale and the promotions surrounding it, it certainly generated a great deal of interest in the lead-up both online and with the inspections at Riverside and that has correlated to some fantastic results.

“There were some very talented horses in the draft and we certainly wish the new owners all the best with their purchases moving forward.”

Inglis Digital Business Manager Nick Melmeth said: “I’m very proud of the work done by our team for this sale in particular.

“It is fantastic to be selling stock for Godolphin, but their reputation also brings with it a level of expectation, so for their draft to sell as well as it did is very rewarding.”

The Cindy Alderson-consigned Miss Vixen – a G3 placed daughter of Foxwedge and Stakes-winning mare Kirvinsky – sold for $135,000 to Scone Bloodstock Services.

Bell View Park sold three broodmares for $75,000 each, Star Flight (Hard Spun) a half-sister to Viddora in foal to Deep Field, Top Actress (O’Reilly) in foal to American Pharoah and Finishing Touch (Invincible Spirit) in foal to Rubick.

Inglis Digital has resumed its twice-monthly sale schedule and entries close for the June (Late) Online Sale at midnight (AEST) Wednesday, June 17.

To enter a horse, CLICK HERE.