I’m exhausted. And I wasn’t even there.
And that’s not worrying about the curricular and or extracurricular requirements or activities only a season setting sale like Magic Millions entails. Moo Moos, Loose Moose, if you were there, you know what I’m talking about.
But the pedantic in me built a glossary of terms observing from afar, that could fill a book thicker than the catalogue of yearlings the sales house offered themselves.
(And surely, it’s time for some new material lads.)
So, without exhausting the exhausted, one hopes you” got the one you want” and of course” it will look good in your colours” after you went one more because of course “one bid one deserves another”, whilst your accountant on speed dial is in apoplexy en route to counselling.
Yes, it looks as though “you could put a saddle on it tomorrow”,” a proper horse”, and “look how it walks” so (when they have walking races that will help), and of course” “he will get every chance” with the trainer you send it too because “look at the make and shape of this one”.
And when you didn’t buy, “we can’t” said the auctioneer, but “we will talk to your people and I’m sure we will have him done by the end of the day.” And then they didn’t. But the numbers were nonetheless impressive.
Anyway, I’m not here for that analysis or the deep dive when all that matters after that, is what these cracking colts and fabulous fillies eventually do on the racetrack. Racenet ran a rather compelling perspective on previous headliners last week – sobering to be sure, but all part of the narrative: Where are they now? Top lots from previous Magic Millions sales (racenet.com.au)
And yet we got the good news stories Saturday, the horse Gai walked into the Log Cabin in Penrith (established 1826), to sell a few shares, ridden by the jockey back from a gambling ban who landed the ride when Tim Clark punted the wrong way on Straight Charge, and well named after Colin Thiele’s 1964 story about a boy and his pelican friend (and Fingerbone and Hideaway Tom), Pelican being the mother of that outstanding Storm Boy.
And yes, that Book 2 refugee, that $70,000 Astounding, no that is its name, for a massive syndicate who saw the First Light, and shone in the Gold Coast limelight sun.
Sure, Andrew Lloyd Webber, had a winner on the typically too darn hot Gold Coast Day to keep those sales statisticians and company happy, as well as Barry Humphries widow Lizzie Spender, hence Too Darn Lizzy, bought for $1m, but Phantom of The Opera at the Gold Coast probably wasn’t suitable, School Of Rock, maybe Joseph and The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat better suited.
It’s all perspective right. All part of the stories that only Magic Millions can offer.
Tasmania’s Grenville Stud led the leading vendors by average. Tasmania. Ok, sold only three, but they averaged $578,000 - you’ve heard of Segenhoe, Newgate, Widden, Coolmore, Yulong, Yarraman, bigger drafts, global backers for sure, Grenville, run by the McCulloch family from Whitemore in the Meander Valley which is a long way in many terms from the Hunter Valley.
But there is Coolmore’s Tom Magnier paying $900,000 for Grenville’s half-brother to Think About it and ok it was by Coolmore’s emerging next generation sire Wootton Basset, but of the Mc Culloch’s - “they’re lovely people, great breeders, and in fairness they had that horse looking fantastic all week.”
But looking for the story of the sales week, it's impossible to go past Lot 349, offered though the Milburn Creek’s draft by John Muir, been there since 1973, was selling cars on Parramatta Road until 2018 ”on the side”, like his father Les did as a General Motors Holden franchisee going back to the 1950’s. He rode ponies, got the horse bug, and is now one of the most respected breeder/vendors in the game. I’m moving quickly in this story to get to another, but his draft averaged over $500,000.
And that draft was headed by Lot 349, a son of Extreme Choice. Bottom line, it made $1.6m, was signed for by James Harron’s stallions seeking colt’s crew. The real story is Luke Wilkinson or Muir’s "as agent” for as listed in the catalogue.
Luke Wilkinson is one of racing's lifers - started young and at the bottom at Eliza Park Stud, three years at Moonee Valley (as it still was then) under Michael Browell's tutelage, before the racing manager's gig at Mick Price Racing came along. Ten years, but as in racing, no long service. Sliding doors into Yulong then onto Ki-Ora and tales withing tales. His latest boss Ananda Krishan questioned if his latest protegee was coming back to work at all after his Magic Millions "windfall".
But what it means? Wilkinson perhaps sums it up best in perspective since the sale, the endless phone messages, the handshakes that leave blisters.
“Probably the best thing had been the people from the industry that have come up to me and I can see tears in their eyes, and say we are so glad because you are one of us, “you did it kid”, it wasn’t a billionaire or a millionaire who spent a fortune for a result, just a kid who chipped away and got it, and that’s probably the best thing I take away from all this.”
Many have heard Luke’s story post sale, paid overs for the yearling son of Not A Single Doubt (lot 86 from the Bell River draft) at the 2015 Inglis Classic Sale. He had a budget of $80,000, paid $100,000. Couldn’t sell it down for Mick Price where he was working as racing manager, (pre-Junior). And the boss wasn't happy.
But he became Extreme Choice (perhaps well named), won a Blue Diamond, sold in a massive multimillion dollar kicker deal, and now commands a $275,00 service fee (of which Wilkinson commands one that was gifted to him, while many have dropped theirs as the stallion’s fertility rates went with it and tested allegiances, try race jockey Craig Newitt for one).
Oh, and the mother, Wanted Lady, he bought for Price for $110,000 as lot 339 off Rob Crabtree’s Dorrington Farm offered through Yallambee, Crabtree stayed in with solid Price stable client Rob Harding.
Wanted, the sire of Wanted Lady, was to breeding the very opposite of Extreme Choice, fertile but useless, and last seen on the giveaway stakes online and unwanted there as well.
Anyway, back to Wilkinson, and the many who wish they could have been him. Including him. “Life-changing” was the oft quoted quote here is the real story.
For sure it is, and friends are aplenty since learning of it, but family is family. Like his 90-yer-old Italian grandmother (“Nonna”).
“She doesn’t speak much English, came to Australia in 1960, but she rang me to say keep some big friends around me to hold on to the money,” Wilkison said.
Not mob like, but she thought Magic Millions was paying $1.6m cash on the day.
He had to remind her, it’s a 42-day settlement, then the old friendly taxman gets a cut, and Muir’s farm rightly gets their preparation and sales commission, and that’s before the parties even started and the bills started – “I haven’t even looked at the credit card bill since,” he’d say but noting trainer Matt Laurie led a vodka shooters bill at Loose Moose (“I was only going there for one”) that may knock some more cream off a little substantially too.
And now its all about paying the school fees (daughter Emma,13, at Geelong College,) and bug her a far to pursue the equestrian dream and she’s sending realeaste.com.au links to dad for perusal already.
“I’ve got to stay humble, I’ve still got three to sell this year, I’ll never get anywhere near the same results but I want them sold and stay in front,” he said.
That’s an Oceanex in foal to I Am Invincible at Easter (which got him his latest job at Ki Ora by the way, after Ananda Krishan bought the mare that Wilkinson stayed in), a Microphone colt at Classic and an Exceedance at Adelaide.
But let’s break it down, sire and dam. There is where the real fun begins, and makes you think, we could all do this.
So Extreme Choice. “He was bought at Classic and we still had him advertised three weeks prior to the Inglis Millenium (December). Mick wasn’t in love with the horse, thought he was a bit small,” Wilkinson said.
“So, we did a jump out video, put a couple of Savabeel’s in it, lights camera action and he was in front by 10, put it up on the website, got (racing.com host) Shane Anderson to tweet it out and we sold the last 30 percent in an instant.”
The Millenium was worth $500,000 but then so much more when Newgate and Henry Field started sniffing. He won the Chairmans next start in February and Field was pushing harder, got 10 percent leading into the Blue Diamond.
“It was the best deal ever in hindsight,” said Wilkinson, mentioning he got a lifetime right, not at the time noting it’s worth.
“It was a sweetheart deal, all the original owners stayed in and got all the prizemoney, including the Blue Diamond, all that changed was the colours (to Newgate).,” Wilkinson said.
Then other shares sold down when he won the Blue Diamond but more so the Group I Moir at three. Stud beckoned, Wilkinson had a nomination and needed a mare.
Wanted Lady, was unwanted by his clients, so he bought it out for $9000. “It was injured and rehabbed, I bought it for my stallion share but couldn’t afford training fees so Mitch Beer was a friend and I said you train it for nothing and keep any prizemoney,” Wilkinson said.
It won two at Benalla and about $28,000 that Beer shared amongst stable staff. “There was a lady who worked for him for years, she got $4000 or so and had her first holiday in years.”
Wanted Lady’s first foal - Abseiler) made $70,000 to Lloyd Kennewell won its first start at Flemington but then ended up with Dan McCarthy, won at Corowa and Wagga and ran 3rd Tuesday at Wagga again for another $2600 to the prizemoney kitty.
Now to Extreme Choice – well that’s some adventure. “This horse has never done me wrong, not from when I bought him. I was never going to sell out, I doubled down even though it almost cost him everything.
“Henry had given me generously a lifetime breeding right, but when they were struggling to in foal, there were bookings the second year, and he send as many as you like, I sent four and got two in foal, it flattened me financially I was living on baked beans on toast, but I had a nice horse.”
Wilkinson had a “ballsy” $1m reserve on lot 349. And still reflects on what’s happened.
Like when he got the Extreme Choice share and took three mates to Pebble Beach to play golf, he plays off four. And is hard to beat.
This year he is taking his father “now up the front of the plane” to St Andrews, “he’s had hip flexor issues”. Maybe three knee replacements, but it’s St Andrews first class this year.
But this colt has other appeals. He’s called Jack, for a reason, after young Jack de Bromhead, a 13-year-old sone of legendary Irish trainer Henry, tragically killed in a pony race at Rossbeigh Beach in County Kerry last year.
“He was an amazing kid, I go to St Andrews every year and we meet with (trainer) Jessica Harrington) and we are close to the family and this kid tagged along for dinner one night and was amazing, we all fell in love with him. We were shattered when learned he passed,” Wilkinson said.
He mentioned this colt’s name was “Jack” in his honour post sales and recalled a 4am missed phone call from Ireland which would be from Jack’s father Henry – whom he had never met.
“I tried to keep it together, by the end of our call we both couldn’t. I couldn’t believe he knew and rang and respected what had happened. I never thought anything else could happen last week, but then that.”
And that is some perspective on more than a number, where a lot of magic is worth a priceless million.
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