Racing
Lloyd Webber pays $2.2m for Too Darn Hot colt
Famous composer reinvests in family he has already has success with.
Andrew Lloyd Webber's Watership Down racing operation caused jaws to drop when it went to seven figures for Too Darn Lizzie as a yearling, but it went even harder for her brother on Monday.
Watership Down, in partnership with Johnny McKeever and Too Darn Hot's trainers Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, paid $2.2 million for a colt by Too Darn Hot and Enbihaar at the Inglis Easter Yearling Sale.
It came just over two years after the same team paid for $1 million for Too Darn Lizzie, a member of the first crop of Australian foals by Too Darn Hot at the 2024 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
Too Darn Lizzie won a Group 2 Thousand Guineas Prelude and $821,000 in stakes before being sold for $2.4m at last year's Chairman's Sale and McKeever said he, Watership Down general manager Simon Marsh and Madeleine Lloyd Webber agreed the colt had to be bought.
"I just didn't want to lose him because our whole week centred around him," McKeever said.
"Having said that, I was asking Simon and Madeline was on the phone and I knew it was asking a big ask.
"But when we bought Too Darn Lizzie we had one more bid. I was on my own back then, I didn't have Simon to even ask, so in that respect maybe it's a good omen that the market pushed us to go where you get a little uncomfortable.
"But, at the end of the day, there's nothing to worry about with the horse; he's simply the best yearling on the grounds, I thought."
The Lloyd Webbers raced Too Darn Hot and stand him in partnership with Darley Australia, which had a $275,000 attached to his services in 2025.
He clearly matches well with Enbihaar, a daughter of Magnus who won the Group 2 Blue Diamond Fillies Prelude and was runner-up in the Group 1 Blue Diamond Stakes in 2018.
The year after her first visit to Too Darn Hot, Enbihaar visited I Am Invincible and produced the classy Celtics, who broke his maiden in impressive style at Bendigo.
The $2.2m colt became the second highest-price lot of the offering at his time of sale, behind only the Extreme Choice-Pretty Brazen colt Tom Magnier went to $3m for on Sunday.
Offered as Lot 288, Enbihaar's son made it back-to-back seven-figure lots for Widden Stud who also sold the previous lot, a colt by Zoustar from Emerald Bay who sold to Magnier for $1 million.
Coolmore recouped that amount, and more, just a few lots later when its daughter of Justify and Ennis Hill – a sister to Learning To Fly – sold to Ciaron Maher and Linda Shanahan for $1.3m.
Check out our FREE Interactive Speed Maps for meetings in nine countries each and every day.