Philip Campbell is synonymous with the Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale, and the former principal of renowned Blue Gum Farm continued to make his mark at Oaklands Junction March 4, selling a blueblood Snitzel filly for AU$925,000 (US$603,359; AU$1=US$0.65).
The highest-priced yearling sold at the Premier sale this year was bought by prominent owner Jonathan Munz, whose longtime agent Dean Hawthorne signed the docket for the sister to high-class sprinter-turned-sire Bruckner.
In a session in which quality horses were sought after—eight lots sold for AU$400,000 or more on Day 2 to match the high-end numbers traded Sunday—it was the most talked-about filly on the grounds that delivered.
At the end of the main Premier Session, Inglis was closing in on AU$51 million ($33,266,280) in trade, with 383 horses changing hands at a clearance rate of 76%. The average of AU$132,693 ($86,553) was down 5% year-on-year, while the median held firm at AU$100,000 ($65,228).
Hawthorne believes the sale-topping filly, the second most expensive filly ever sold at the Victorian sale, could be capable of racing in feature races in 12 months’ time.
“We haven’t bought in the sale ring for a few years, GSA, but this filly, they don’t come along like this, these Snitzel fillies, very often, and so we thought we would have a crack at her,” the Kiwi agent said. “With that pedigree, she had one of the best pages in the book, and you get here, and the type matches, away you go.
“She had that big middle, a big gaskin and hindquarter, and looked like she was going to be a 2-year-old. She moved very well and I watched her a lot, she just seemed to get on with the job. They are the ones you can see fronting up in the autumn 2-year-old races in Melbourne and Sydney. They’re the ones you’re after. If it all goes to plan, you’ve got a good type for a broodmare as well.”
The filly is a daughter of Jestajingle, whose progeny have been regulars at the Premier sale. Her first foal, an AU$725,000 Premier graduate, is the group 3-winning, Coolmore Stud Stakes (G1) runner-up Bruckner, who will enter his second season at Widden Victoria in 2024, while her third foal, Tuned, sold for AU$500,000 at last year’s sale to Annabel Neasham.
Jestajingle is a half sister to stakes-winning 2- and 3-year-old Jukebox, with the pair being out of Perth listed-winning juvenile Jestatune.
NEWS: A sister to G1 Coolmore Stud Stakes placegetter and former sale-topping #InglisPremier graduate Bruckner today realised a sale-high $925,000 at Oaklands. READ MORE: pic.twitter.com/alRj61inAg
— Inglis (@inglis_sales) March 4, 2024
Campbell and his wife, Patti, sold their Euroa-based Blue Gum Farm to Trilogy’s Jason and Mel Stenning and Sean and Cathy Dingwall in 2022 after four decades developing the property and becoming a leading vendor at the Premier sale.
Blue Gum Farm clients Mike Howard, Keith Brown, and Campbell, along with some other partners, acquired Jestajingle from Western Australian breeders Neville and Susan Duncan, themselves longtime supporters of Blue Gum Farm.
Anthony and Sam Freedman, who train from Munz’s Mount Eliza-based Pinecliff facility as well as Flemington, is “odds-on” to take on the impressive filly.
The Freedmans have trained group 1 winners Shoals and Super Seth for Munz.
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