The star colt from the final southern hemisphere crop of the late champion sire Danehill fetched an Australian record A$2.2 million ($13 million) in Sydney yesterday, to the bid of leading Melbourne trainer Lee Freedman.
The first day of the William Inglis Australian Easter Yearling sale was a record smasher across the board, where 135 horses were sold at an average price of $208,759, generating gross turnover of $28,182,500 - up an incredible 55 per cent on the corresponding session last year.
Two other Danehill colts, both bred by the late Robert Sangster, who died from cancer in England last week, also made more than A$1 million each. They were consigned by Collingrove Stud, an enterprise jointly owned by the Sangster estate and top Hong Kong trainer David Hayes.
Freedman's Danehill colt was offered by Coolmore Stud. He is a brother to VRC Maribyrnong Plate (Group 2) winner Langoustine and this season's exceptional juvenile filly One World, winner of the VRC Thoroughbred Breeders Stakes (Group 3) and SAJC Fullham Park Plate (Group 3). Freedman bought the colt on behalf of a partnership, whose principals he declined to name.
But it is clear they see the record-priced colt as a future stallion as his dam, Prawn Cocktail, is an unraced half sister to top sire Royal Academy and to Terlingua, the dam of the world's most commercial stallion Storm Cat. 'He is a magnificent colt from an internationally renowned family,' said Freedman. 'They are not making any more Danehills and this is just a special colt. We were just about on our limit, there was not a lot left in the tank,' he added.
The underbidder on the Prawn Cocktail colt is understood to have been a bloodstock agent acting on behalf of Japanese interests.