Lot 447, Snitzel x First Seal
Three years after closing a career of immeasurable importance, First Seal crowned her entrance as a broodmare when her first yearling set alight one of international racing’s premier thoroughbred sales, Australia’s 2020 Easter Yearling Sale. The AUD1,800,000 realized by the Snitzel x First Seal colt was the highest among the 214 yearlings sold over the two-day sale and set a new benchmark in Australia for the China Horse Club’s breeding operation.
First Seal has been a talismanic thread throughout the short history of the China Horse Club. The striking filly was the club’s first international filly champion and the first dominant performer for the Club in Australia. Arriving in the second year of operation, she was the wind beneath the wings for CHC as it aspired to soar to international heights. At only her fifth career start, First Seal spread-eagled the best fillies in Australia to secure the G1 Coolmore Flight Stakes. In doing so she accounted for subsequent world champion Winx, an icon she bested on no less than five occasions – three times in victory, twice when a G1 runner-up. She was also crowned the NSW Horse of the Year among a series of career accolades.
Her handsome Snitzel son has been much admired leading into the 2020 Easter Yearling Sale, attracting the level of attention one of expect considering his pedigree. And while the dynamics of this year’s sale removed the theatre of bidders eyeballing each other around a sales-ring, it is understood that some of the world’s biggest racing and breeding operations were feverishly locking horns over keyboards to secure the colt.
In the end it was Tom Magnier of Coolmore Stud who won out. Magnier, whose brother M.V. purchased champion mare Abel Tasman off China Horse Club and the Cleary Family 12 months ago for USD5 million at the 2019 Keeneland January Sale, sourced the colt for the famous operation. His determination delivered China Horse Club its ninth sales-topper across all thoroughbred auction forms with other sales-topper enjoyed in Ireland (twice), Britain (twice), France (twice), USA and New Zealand.
China Horse Club has sold no less than seven seven-figure thoroughbreds across all currencies since 2018 with the Snitzel x First Seal colt delivering a continuity of million-dollar results that is testament to a breeding programme of serious international significance.
https://inglis.com.au/sales/info/2020+Australian+Easter+Yearling+Sale/catalogue/447
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