The star attraction at Sydney’s Easter Sale lived up to her billing with Black Caviar’s half sister fetching a sale high $2.6 million on Wednesday.
BC3 Thoroughbreds won a bidding duel to secure the sought-after daughter of Redoute’s Choice out of Helsinge on the second day of the Australian Easter Yearling Sale at Newmarket.
The filly’s price tag equalled the highest paid for a filly at public auction in Australia, matching the amount paid for a full sister to Alinghi at the Easter Sale in 2006.
It was more than 12 times the price Peter Moody paid for Black Caviar in 2008 with the future champion going for $210,000.
Bidding on the newest member of the family started at $1 million with the next bid $1.5 million.
It settled down to increments of $100,000 with BC3’s Bill Vlahos the last man standing at $2.6 million, winning out over an undisclosed Japanese buyer.
Danny O’Brien will train the filly who is a half-sister to wonder mare Black Caviar who is unbeaten in 19 starts and rated the world’s best sprinter.
The filly is also a half-sister last year’s sale topper All Too Hard who is unbeaten in his three starts and is odds-on favourite to win his first Group One in Saturday’s Sires’ Produce Stakes at Randwick.
Vlahos said they had bought a piece of racing history.
“To some extent we’re representing the Australian industry a bit with what we’ve got on our hands,” Vlahos said.
“We’ve got to be mindful of what we’ve got.”
O’Brien said the opportunity to buy into the Black Caviar family could have been a one-off.
“She’s a filly that generally you wouldn’t even get a chance to buy,” O’Brien said.
“For whatever reason Rick (Jamieson) has sold her. I spoke to him the other night and he didn’t think there would ever be another horse out of this mare that would come on the market.
The filly’s price was close to Vlahos’ limit and he admitted to a few nerves.
“I think at $2.5 million I got a little bit wobbly,” Vlahos said.
“We pretty much stuck to our price and we think she’s worth exactly what we paid for her. Too much more and it might not be us owning her but it’s exactly what I think she’s worth and hopefully more by the end of her racing career.”
The star filly aside, William Inglis and Son managing director Mark Webster was pleased with the second session.
“The median yesterday was $160,000 and today it was $180,000 and is back around where we wanted to be,” Webster said.
“It’s on a par with last year so it was solid enough from that perspective.”
Webster was thrilled with the atmosphere when the star lot took to the ring.
“It was magic out there. A great experience,” he said.
