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A filly by Written Tycoon walked into the Magic Millions sales ring with the agent going to $1,500,000.
It was a case of 'go hard or go home' for agent Seamus Mills when a filly by Written Tycoon (Iglesia) walked into the Magic Millions sales ring on Thursday, with the agent going to $1,500,000 for the Strawberry Hill Stud-consigned yearling - the most ever paid for a yearling by the Woodside Park Stud-based sire.
Yesterday's figure was a $1 million more than Mills had ever spent on a yearling and the delighted agent was full of praise for the yearling labelling her 'the best yearling he had ever seen in his life'.
"But she's as good a yearling as I have ever seen, not just a filly and not just at this sale, she really is as good as a yearling as I've seen," said Mills. "She is outstanding. I just couldn't fault her. I generally judge horses up to A+ and I had to invent a new category on my scale and I just said to the boys 'If I had to give something an A+++ that's her'."
Mills also admitted getting a bit carried away when trying to secure the filly, but that he could not leave the sales without her.
"I don't know what I'm thinking actually, I hope someone is going to pay for it," he said. "I got a bit carried away there, but look people use these superlatives about the best horses in the sale which is a lot of sales talk.
"The ownership will be a little gang of people, but to be brutally honest I just thought she was that good and I just wanted her. I have never done this, she is as good a yearling as I have ever seen in my life.
"There will probably end up being a lot of expensive geldings here, but at least if you put your money into a filly we've got her for the next ten years, hopefully.
"I was thinking she would make between $800,000-$900,000 - but what is $600,000 between friends? I think I'm going to have a cigarette, haven't had one for ten years but I think I'm going to have to have one."
Catalogued as Lot 434, https://catalogue.magicmillions.com.au/lot/20GPR/434 the filly is out of Group 3-winning Not A Single Doubt (Redoute's Choice) mare Karuta Queen, who also produced Listed winner Eawase (Sebring). Her second dam is Group 3 winner Card Queen (Final Card), who is herself a half-sister to the dam of Group 3 winner and Group 1-placed Vain Queen (Artie Schiller).
Mills said that he was impressed with the way the filly had taken the rigmarole of a sale and had kept her professionalism over the five days of showing.
"When I went down to see her this morning, she was walking as well as she did on day one of the sale and she walked as well in the sales ring as she did on the first day I saw her," said Mills. "She would have had to have been one of the busiest horses on the sales ground - so she is just an extraordinary horse.
"We hope to be back here at the Magic Millions selling expensive foals out of her in the future. We have no idea who will train her, but my phone is sitting on the table over there and I think it would have rung a couple of times."
Duncan Grimley, racing and bloodstock manager to John Singleton, who owns Strawberry Hill Stud, said that she was a one in a million filly and was happy to see her sell so well.
"It's an outstanding sale and she was a magnificent filly, a real queen," said Grimley. "I've been selling horses for a long time, but you very rarely get a filly who looks like that.
"She paraded beautifully the whole sale, never turned a hair. Everyone who looked at her and inspected her, the good judges were back four and five times and she paraded perfectly every time and they thought it was an extraordinary themselves.
"When the horse went in the ring, there were bids everywhere, so to get that result was fantastic for everybody.
When asked whether there was a sense of regret after selling the filly, Grimley said: "There always is, but we also run a business and occasionally we get to a time where we have to sell things that we probably shouldn't or wouldn't normally and this year is one of those years.
"We are selling a lot of horses that in a normal year we would keep but we haven't been kicking enough goals on the racetrack at the moment, so that is reflected in our yearling sales.
"It's unfortunate for John that we are selling a filly like that but the other side of it is that she has gone to a great home and we got a great price and we will follow her with great interest."