Run The Numbers – Group 1 mares on the market

This article first featured in The Straight on July 15 2024. The Straight’s Run The Numbers is sponsored by Inglis.

Australia offers a higher percentage of Group 1 winning-mares to public auction than any other jurisdiction, with 18 in 2024. This week’s Run The Numbers examines the Australian market’s unrivalled access to elite broodmares.

The volume of Group 1 racing in Australia, second only behind the United States in a global context, gives our elite mares and fillies plenty of opportunity to achieve that most valuable of stamps in their racing careers.

There are 13 Group 1 races available exclusively to mares and/or fillies each season, plus a host of open-sex races that they can contest.

The 2023/24 season saw an unusually high number of fillies and mares win open-sex Group 1 sprint races.

Of the 28 open-sex Group 1 races contested over 1400 metres or less, including two and three-year-old races, mares or fillies won 19 of them. Imperatriz led the way with five of those victories.

In terms of the total number of individual Group 1-winning fillies or mares in Australia, this season that stood at 25. That is two more than last season, when it was 23, but two fewer than in 2021/22, when it was 27. In 2020/21, that number stood at 20.

Accounting for those mares or fillies who won multiple Group 1s in different seasons, we find there have been 81 different Group 1-winning mares or fillies in Australia since the start of the 2020/21 season. Of those, 31 are still racing.

So that means there have been 50 Group 1-winning mares whose racing careers have concluded and, with the exception of one horse, the ill-fated El Patroness, went on to breeding careers.

What makes Australia different from most other racing jurisdictions, is how many of our best-performed mares are subsequently offered for public auction after their racing careers.

In the case of the 49 Group 1-winning mares above, 25 have gone on to be sold at public auction. Espiona, who will sell at a special Magic Millions Virtual Sale on July 31, will likely be the 26th. A further six mares have been sold privately from the ownership that raced them.

That means there are just 17 Group 1-winning mares or fillies, or 34.7 per cent, since the start of 2020/21 who have been retained for breeding by their original owners/breeders. (For clarification, this includes Verry Elleegant, who sadly died in France foaling her first foal).

That is a very low rate when compared to the other jurisdictions around the world.

Group 1-winning mares and their subsequent ownership after retirement, listed by season

*Australian data is from 2022/23, not 2023

The average price of the top 10 broodmares sold in the United States in 2023 was AU$6.5 million, while it was US$5.8 million in the United Kingdom, but only US$2.94 million in Australia.

Despite the record price Imperatriz achieved in May of $6.6 million, the average of the top 10 in Australia is very similar in 2024. It currently stands at $2.96 million.

That could possibly increase with the Espiona sale. She looks a rare offering, given the only other Group 1-winning daughter of Extreme Choice, She’s Extreme, sold for $3.4 million at the Inglis Chairman’s Sale.

While digital, or virtual sales, are a distance from matching the public broodmare auctions, there have been some outstanding results. Inglis Digital has sold two Group 1-winning mares for more than $1 million, Funstar ($2.7 million) and Sierra Sue ($1.55 million) as well as a host of other stakes-winning mares for seven figures.

Magic Millions used its virtual format to sell Group 1 winner Sheeza Belter for $1.35 million last year, while Group 2 winner Kiku, like Espiona, offered on behalf of Star Thoroughbreds, sold for $1.46 million last August.

Gavelhouse, New Zealand Bloodstock’s online auction arm, holds the record for the highest price for an online Group 1-winning broodmare having sold Avantage for $4.1 million in 2021. Other Group 1-winning mares to sell for seven figures on that platform include Amarelinha.