Horse breeder Tom Magnier’s Zougotcha moment – for $5.25m

Tom Magnier reckons the latest addition to his stable has ‘very, very good pedigree’.

Horse breeder Tom Magnier with racing filly turned broodmare Zougotcha, which he bought for $5.25m at the Magic Millions sales on Tuesday. Picture: Luke Marsden

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According to one of the nation’s top horsemen, Tom Magnier, “buying a good filly can change your address”.

Take note, because on Tuesday Mr Magnier purchased the highly sought racing filly turned broodmare, Zougotcha, for $5.25m in what is likely to prove the nation's biggest deal of the year.

The triple Group I winner was the top auction result at the Magic Millions national broodmare sale on the Gold Coast, which generated a staggering $30.62m across 88 sales.

Mr Magnier, the Irishman who heads the Australian arm of his family’s stud farming juggernaut Coolmore, told The Australian that, based on the bidding, there were a lot of good judges in the room.

“She’s a very, very beautiful mare, and she’s got a very, very good pedigree and was a very, very good racehorse,” Mr Magnier said.

“Effectively, she ticks all the boxes. You can build your whole farm on the back of a mare like this.”

The sale fell shy of the $6.6m spent by competitor Yulong to ­secure Imperatriz at last year’s event, which set the southern hemisphere’s record for a ­broodmare.

Antony Thompson, of ­Widden Stud in the NSW Hunter Valley, bred Zougotcha and ­retained part ownership when she was sold to Chris Waller Racing/Mulcaster Bloodstock for $500,000 in 2021.

Mr Thompson said getting the right broodmare was “serious business”.

“This is where it happens,” Mr Thompson said. “The decisions you make at the mare sales today determine your fate.

“If you can buy the right ­broodmare, that can really move the needle and make a big difference to the breeding operations”.

Coolmore is looking to secure the best broodmares across ­Europe, America and Australia to pair with British-bred stallion Wootton Bassett.

“Wootton Bassett is probably the best stallion in the world at the moment, and he’s young, and he’s just getting better and better and better,” Mr Magnier said.

Magic Millions owner Gerry Harvey said Tuesday’s event was the “hottest ticket in town” but voiced concern that the industry was broadly focusing too much on the top of the market.

“The bottom 50 per cent of horses, the demand is very slow and I think that they’ve got it wrong,” he said.

“The industry is concentrating too much at the top and not enough at the bottom, and some of the best horses ever bred have come out of the bottom.”

Mr Harvey, executive chairman of homewares retailer Harvey Norman, believes Tuesday’s result will pave way for a “very strong” Magic Millions racing festival in January.