Vinery Stud has commenced yearling inspections for the Gold Coast Magic Millions Sale and its Ole Kirk filly from Saas Fee took the eye when parading for prospective buyers on Wednesday.
Vinery’s Group 1-winning son of Written Tycoon has five first-crop colts and fillies from home-base starting on Day 1 with the Saas Fee (All Too Hard) filly catalogued as Lot 121 next Tuesday.
“There’s a healthy cross-section of proven sires and young exciting stallions and above all we have the first yearlings by Ole Kirk,” Vinery’s Harry Roach said. “The Saas Fee filly is a nice, strong, forward first foal and is a very good representative of the sire.”
Saas Fee won at Warwick Farm for Vinery partners Neil Werrett and Steve McCann and she is a daughter of VRC Lightning Stakes (Gr.1, 1000m) winner Snitzerland (Snitzel). Her full-brother Hard Landing was also a Flemington black-type winner of the VRC Maribyrnong Plate (Gr.3, 1000m).
Another popular Day 1 entrant from Vinery at the sale-grounds is the So You Think colt from Realms Of Light (Maxios) catalogued as Lot 87. The German-bred mare is a half-sister to the dam of New Zealand Group 1 winner Lizzie L’Amour (Zabeel).
“He’s a very sharp style of a colt and should sell quite well,” Roach predicted. “The first day of inspections is always full of anticipation and the traffic will multiply going forward. Our numbers stack up compared to previous years and hopefully there’s some well-deserved results for our clients.”
Vinery’s Zoustar filly out of Fit And Ready (Lot 672) to be offered in the last hour of trade on Day 3 is also creating interest. She’s a half-sister to Group 3 winners Outrageous (ATC Festival Stakes) and Very Tempting (WATC Oaks) from the family of Group 1 Golden Slipper Stakes winner Catbird.
Zoustar sired more winners than any other stallion worldwide in 2023 and his Vinery graduate Gitalong added the finishing touches when completing a hat-trick at Moonee Valley on Xmas Eve.
Team Hawkes had purchased him for $425,000 at the 2022 Gold Coast Magic Millions and he’s well on the way to paying that back for a syndicate managed by Rupert Legh. The Moonee Valley race was worth $150,000 and he’s going around again in the $175,000 SCAADA Group 3yo Hcp (1100m) at Geelong this Saturday.
Gitalong had won the first two-legs in Sydney before floating to Melbourne a day before his latest assignment. He had been stationed down south for the Magic Millions Ballarat 2yo Classic (1000m) last season and, being such a well-balanced galloper, there were no problems handling The Valley.
“He is ‘two-stone’ lighter now and settled straight away in his old box yesterday,” Wayne Hawkes said. “It panned out perfectly today. He got into a rhythm and did a good job leading all the way. He’s got a future and we will look at some of those better 3yo sprints down here in the next month or two.”
