SADLER'S WELLS BREAKS MAGIC MILLIONS RECORD
12th January 2007
Champion trainer Gai Waterhouse had the opening, and final, bid of A$2 million to take a colt by Sadler's Wells in dramatic fashion during the second session of the Magic Millions Yearling Sale on Friday. The trainer's husband, leading bookmaker Rob Waterhouse, made the bid, which wasn't challenged by a single person in the sales complex and broke the all-time record for a yearling at Magic Millions.
"The most fabulous colt I've ever seen," Gai Waterhouse stated. "There's never been a horse in the Southern Hemisphere bred like him. This is the horse of the sale. This is the horse of the year -- just outstanding. I'm very lucky to be able to buy it."
Waterhouse conditioned the bay colt's dam, Sunday Joy (Sunday Silence), who captured the Australian Oaks (Aus-G1) and W. H. Stocks S. (Aus-G3) in 2003. The mare is herself out of Joie Denise (Danehill), winner of the 1995 Queensland Oaks (Aus-G1) and a half-sister to the dam of 1994 Champagne S. (Aus-G1) victress, Euphoria (Marauding). The colt's third dam is Denise's Joy (Seventh Hussar), Australia's champion three-year-old filly in 1976 who took the Craven Plate (Aus-G1) and V.R.C. Oaks (Aus-G1).
"You've got three dams -- the mother, the grandmother and the great grandmother all Oaks winners -- you can't buy them," she added. "You cannot buy a horse with that sort of breeding anywhere in the world for that sort of money. You just can't buy them."
Waterhouse said that she was acting on behalf of a group of people both from Australia and overseas.
"He only has to win a listed race, and he's worth it -- actually 10 or 20 times that," the horsewoman noted.
John Singleton of Strawberry Hill Stud, who bred and consigned the yearling as Lot 376, was understandably delighted with the result.
"It's nice to have some luck," Singleton said. "He was a great colt, and I'm glad he'll go to a good home. It's great to break the sale record."