How to buy a yearling at Magic Millions, according to the experts

Gus McCubbing

Jan 6, 2024 – 5.00am

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Bloodstock expert Vin Cox says picking out a champion thoroughbred racehorse from the hundreds of yearlings up for grabs at Magic Millions is like walking into a classroom and trying to find the next Matildas star.

There’s a few telltale physical signs, a fair bit of subjectivity, and an element of luck when 1468 horses aged between one and two years old are put on the market at the Gold Coast carnival on January 9.

Bloodstock expert Vin Cox says the hustle and bustle of Magic Millions can provide key insights into a yearling’s temperament and whether they can handle raceday pressure. Luke Marsden

The yearlings are in human years roughly the equivalent of schoolkids between year 6 and year 8, explains Cox, who joined emerging powerhouse Yulong Investments, owned by Chinese billionaire Yuesheng Zhang, in December, after six years running Godolphin Australia.

Buyers pay close attention to each horse’s lineage, with more focus on the dam, or mother’s side, he said. They examine how far back that pedigree goes, and whether history suggests the yearling would be better at sprinting or long-distance races like the Melbourne Cup.

“You’re looking at their potential athletic ability, so it’s a bit like walking into a classroom and picking out the kids who could play for the Matildas or the Wallabies,” Cox told The Australian Financial Review.

“You’ll never get it 100 per cent right, because there’s a hell of lot of weird and wonderful variables, but you’ve got to get it right more often than not.”

Magic Millions, now owned by Gerry Harvey and Katie Page-Harvey, has evolved from a once nearly bankrupt auction house in the south of Queensland into a celebration of Australia’s bloodstock industry and the Gold Coast region. It broke the southern hemisphere yearling sale record of more than $243 million last year, amid a cost of living crisis.

The horses on display during the 10-day carnival, which involves its flagship yearling sale and a multimillion-dollar race series, as well as showjumping and polo events, are the culmination of months of scouting by Magic Millions director Barry Bowditch and his team at farms across Australia and New Zealand between July and December.

Magic Millions has a proven track record with Group 1 winners. It has also scouted thoroughbreds sold for less than $200,000 that have since generated millions of dollars in earnings for owners – Jacquinot, Montefilia, Forbidden Love and Stay Inside among them.

Winx, one of the world’s best-known horses, was a $230,000 purchase at the event in 2013 that went on to win 25 Group 1 races, as well as her final 33 races in a row.

Will Johnson, a Sydney-based bloodstock agent whose great-grandfather Walter Johnson bred and raced champion sprinter Vain, says he likes to head into Magic Millions with a shortlist of 100 horses he’s interested in.

Key physical attributes include the horse’s size, structure, strength, stride length and bone density, but most important, he says, is the “engine room”.

Buyers are also enticed by less scientific factors like numbers, names and coat colours that could be considered lucky, with grey being the favourite.

“Fast horses have big hips and hind quarters, so first and foremost you want that engine room behind the saddle,” Johnson, who bought five-year-old gelding Overpass, which has won $5.6 million in prizemoney, for $75,000 at a yearling sale in 2020, told the Financial Review.

“You’re also looking at how well they cope with the week, their attitude, and how well they parade, because they’re going into a training regime that will test their mental capacity as much as their physicality.”

Yulong’s Mr Cox agrees that the pageantry and buzz of Magic Millions also provides buyers with key information about a yearling’s temperament.

“The first real pressure these horses go under is in that sale environment,” he says.

“There’s bands, loudspeakers, crowds, flags flapping in the wind and they’re holed up there for 10 days. Some horses can’t cope with it, but if they can, then that’s one indicator they can cope with actual raceday pressure.”