The momentum established by Brazen Beau at the season’s earliest Australian yearling sales built to a new level on Sunday’s opening session of the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale when his colt from Up In Lights made a record $800,000.
Brazen Beau topped last month’s Inglis Classic Sale for the second successive year and quickly set the standard here when Hong Kong-based Orbis Bloodstock came out on top on a day of good results for Darley stallions.
Orbis representative Paul King said he’d been determined to buy the colt who will go to leading Sydney trainers Team Hawkes.
“He’s the best Brazen Beau I’ve seen here and his sire is going enormous,” King said.
“We’ve got a Brazen Beau at home that we like a lot, he’s really starting to show what he’s got.
“John (Hawkes) loves him and he’s a bloke who can make a horse into a stallion. If he likes them, we’ll buy them.”
From an unraced daughter of O’Reilly and offered by Bhima Thoroughbreds, the colt’s granddam is a half sister to the four-time G1 winner Metal Bender.
The colt is one of seven Brazen Beau yearlings to make six figures during the opening session with buyers from the new world of thoroughbred racing and breeding battling local trainers for the offspring of a stallion who ranks as one of Australia’s most sought after.
Among other notable Brazen Beau purchasers were Chinese racing and breeding operation Yulong, who paid $420,000 for a filly from the Elvstroem mare Beautiful Pleasure from the Blue Gum Farm draft.
Yulong’s Sam Fairgray described the filly as "a typical, athletic, classy Brazen Beau."
"He's the sire of the moment and this filly was right up there with the best Brazen Beau's we've seen," Fairgray said.
"She's very athletic, great attitude, a cracking filly."
Among the local buyers of Brazen Beau yearlings were Colin Little who went to $250,000 for the filly from the Redoute’s Choice mare Colerne offered by Three Bridges Thoroughbreds.
Little trained Colerne and said he had pinpointed Brazen Beau as a prospective mate for her before he had finished racing.
“Brazen Beau is the best of I Am Invincible’s sons and when he retired we couldn’t get a mare to him quickly enough,” Little said.
While Brazen Beau topped the averages at $285,000, Darley’s Teofilo also had a strong day with his top-priced Lot a filly from the Commands mare Fragrance who made $310,000.
Offered by Stonehouse Thoroughbreds, she was purchased by Victorian trainer Richard Laming and Hong Kong-based agent Justin Bahen.
The presence of Lonhro high on the season’s two-year-old winners’ list helped his only offering of the day, Lot 175, a colt from the Exceed And Excel mare Exceedingly Royal, make $200,000.
