Winx’s second foal will no doubt grab the main headline, but the Inglis Easter Yearling Sale is also shaping as a showcase for another superstar of the Australian Thoroughbred scene—sire sensation Extreme Choice.
The catalog for the sale trumped as the "best of the best," and the most important in the Southern Hemisphere is now out, with a high-quality selection of 472 yearlings assembled, up from 421 last year, and down from a modern peak of 500 in 2024.
An expectant hush will befall Riverside’s auditorium when Winx"s colt by Snitzel goes under the hammer, though no one expects him to match the AU$10 million the wonder mare’s co-owner Debbie Kepitis paid in 2024 for her filly by Pierro, the as-yet unraced 3-year-old Quinceanera.
But much interest, not to mention business, is certain to center on the 11 lots by Newgate Farm’s Extreme Choice, in an auction that could mark his ascension into a bona fide sales superstar.
This year's yearlings are the subfertile star's first full crop after he entered the stratosphere of service fees at AU$275,000 following his stunning first few years of runners.
The 12-year-old, now boasting 11.6% stakes winners to runners—and six individual elite-level victors of races as diverse as the Golden Slipper Stakes (G1) and the Melbourne Cup (G1)—is now the most expensive stallion in Australia, having completed his ninth book last spring at AU$330,000.
Already, the quality of this crop has been borne out at Magic Millions Gold Coast, where Extreme Choice comfortably had the best average price among stallions, at AU$822,500 for eight lots sold, which included the equal sale-topping AU$2 million colt out of Hazlebrook, sold by Kingstar Farm to Yulong.
And Inglis' bloodstock CEO Sebastian Hutch believes the stallion's entries this Easter reflect how Australia's leading breeders clamored to send some of the finest mares in the country to the stallion in the spring of 2023.
Not only does Hutch describe the Easter catalog as the finest he's seen in his seven years at Inglis, he says it contains "the best group of Extreme Choice yearlings ever to go to a sale."
"The credentials of each of them are outstanding," Hutch told ANZ News. "This is a proper group of horses by what is a generational stallion. His record is nothing short of extraordinary.
"It's the first time his mare quality is commensurate, or close to commensurate, with his quality as a stallion."
Ten of the 11 Extreme Choices will be offered in Newgate's draft, including Lot 117, a filly out of Speak Fondly, a four-time black-type victor whose racetrack highlight came when landing the Flight Stakes (G1) in 2015, and dam of Brisbane listed winner Compelling Truth.
Newgate also offers a filly from Cicatrix (Violence ), dam of the group 1-placed Mayfair, while Lot 306 is out of another United States mare in Fashion Faux Pas (Flatter), whose year-older son Nations League was a AU$1.7 million yearling.
This year's Easter catalog also features the penultimate crop of the late, great Snitzel, the most represented sire in the book with 43 yearlings, ahead of I Am Invincible with 41, and reigning champion sire Zoustar, with 35.
Of course, great interest will center on one star Snitzel colt to be offered as Lot 187 in Coolmore's draft on the first of the two days of the sale, March 29-30, whose dam is the great Winx.
Although Kepitis has said she'll be content to see this one go, and while the underbidder on her AU$10 million filly, John Stewart, was noticeably absent at the Gold Coast, the colt will be odds-on to comfortably pass the seven-figure threshold.
"I saw him two weeks ago at Coolmore, and he looks really well," Hutch said."He's a late November foal, so he's on a slightly different trajectory to other horses at the sale, but he'd grown and strengthened quite a lot from a couple of months earlier."
Winx is just one of 51 group 1-winning mares with progeny on offer.
"It's certainly the best Easter catalog I've seen in my time at Inglis," said Hutch, who arrived there in 2019.
"We feel we've consolidated a catalog of real quality with incredible depth to it across a number of drafts. The support of a huge volume of vendors has been extremely strong."
