Racing
Frankel colt stars on Day 1 at Magic Millions
Coolmore spends $2 million on Frankel colt at Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
A colt by global superstar Frankel was the first seven-figure lot of this year's Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, getting to $2 million before being knocked down to Coolmore's Tom Magnier.
The Segenhoe Stud-raised youngster is out of the Lonhro mare Antibes, which makes her a sister to promising Mark Walker-trained three-year-old Chateau Eze.
That filly carries the colours of her breeder John Camilleri, who elected to sell the younger brother and Segenhoe general manager Peter O'Brien was pleased to see the man who bred Winx rewarded.
"John Camilleri sends those mares over there – it's a big risk to send them up there, travel them, bring them back (and) foal them – so he deserves all the credit," O'Brien said.
"The mother had a ton of ability but it doesn't read it in the book, so John backed his knowledge of her ability and had a big swing with her and he's got the just rewards."
The colt's dam is a daughter of Redoute's Choice mare A Time For Julia, a dual Group 3 winner and three-quarter-sister to Personify, the dam of Personal, who carried the Coolmore colours to victory in the VRC Oaks.
Personal was trained at Lindsay Park but the Frankel colt will be trained by Chris Waller and Magnier said all involved were keen to get him.
"We've had a lot of Frankels in the northern hemisphere, (more) than in the southern hemisphere, so we know them well, (and) we've had a lot of luck with the grand dam," Magnier said.
"All the team really liked him. He's a lovely fluid-actioned horse and he ticks all the boxes.
"Chris really liked the horse all week. I suppose there's a couple of horses that you don't agree on, but when everybody agrees on a horse, it gives you the confidence to go a little bit further."
Magnier's big buy was just the fifth colt to get to $2 million at Magic Millions and now holds the honour of being the most expensive yearling by Frankel sold in Australia.
His time in the ring ended at 12.47pm local time and half-an-hour later the sale had its first female millionaire when a daughter of I Am Invincible, who was bred at Coolmore, sold for $1,050,000.
Glentree Thoroughbreds bought the filly with Badger's Bloodstock and Glentree's Luke Simpson was delighted to get the youngster out of nine-time Group 1 winner Avantage, who in 2024 had a filly by Wootton Bassett, now known as Avantaggia, top the same sale at $2.1m.
"She's a lovely filly that we saw earlier on in the week and we kept our eye on her and every time we saw her she just kept improving," Simpson said.
"We've seen her other siblings and I think she was equally as good as them, so she had all the attributes that we were after."
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