Frankel foals top day one of Magic Millions

Frankel provided the two biggest sellers of the first day of the Magic Millions Gold Coast Weanling Sale with a colt and filly making A$500,000 and A$450,000 respectively.

Taken from The Thoroughbred Report Australia/New Zealand, 27th May 2024:

As the only Frankel colt in the sale, Lot 15 was always going to attract a lot of attention and there was strong bidding as he reached day one’s sale topping amount of A$500,000 - secured by Jim Clarke along with Cunningham Thoroughbreds and Bjorn Baker Racing.

“We bought a similar colt here two years ago,” Jim Clarke said, noting that that Frankel - Fix  two-year-old called Viktor is coming along nicely for the Baker stable.

“It is very hard to get a horse with his breeding at the yearling sales,” he said, “so when we see one like him in the weanling sales we have to have a look.” And in this case Clarke certainly liked what he saw - “first and foremost he was the best bred horse - by a margin - in the sale. Frankel is a freak, statistically the best stallion in the world.”

“His dam is a Group 1 winner who has already produced two Group placed performers and her son races tonight.”

That horse is Coolmore’s Chief Little Rock who is strongly fancied to take out the Gr.3 Gallinule Stakes at The Curragh.

“His pedigree is very hard to pick holes in,” Clarke said “and if he furnishes and grows well as I expect him to do he’d be the sort of horse who would be very hard to buy as a yearling.”

Coolmore’s Colm Santry was pleased with the result - “he is a very nice horse whose X-factor is the fact that he is from an Australian family. For a Frankel he is a bit closer to home and it is such a great family.”

The colt is the first Australian born foal for the G1 1000 Guineas and triple Group winner Amicus whose stakes-placed dam Gold Chant is a half-sister to Coolmore’s globe-trotting multiple Group 1 winner Starspangledbanner.

The day’s second highest priced seller was also a Frankel - Lot 144 sold by Coolmore to North Bloodstock is the first foal for the unraced imported mare Kapralova. Purchased by James Bester for A$1 million (in foal with this filly) at last year’s National Broodmare Sale and served last spring by Justify, she is a full sister to the dual Group 1 winner Avenge and the Group 3 winner Luguria and half-sister to the Listed winner Lira.

“She is a very good looking filly who looks perfect for resale,” Colm Santry said, “and her pedigree certainly warrants the A$450,000 price tag.

North Bloodstock’s Mick Malone was delighted to secure the filly, excited to have the first Frankel on his farm: “I was there the day he and Black Caviar won at Royal Ascot,” he said - “that was a great trip for me, a day I will never forget. This filly has that real Frankel look - she is a beautiful filly and a lovely walker and she is from a great quality international family.”