If there was betting on who would buy lot 1494 at the Magic Millions National Yearling Sale, you wouldn’t have got fancy odds about Robert and Luke Price securing the daughter of Dundeel and Timeless Choice.
But you would have collected, with the Kembla Grange trainers claiming the half-sister to their stable star Count De Rupee.
The father/son training combination had to go to $220,000, but Robert said that would end up cheap if Count De Rupee scales the heights they think he is destined for.
“The plan is to try and get Count De Rupee to win a Group 1 and that might put a bit of residual in her,” he said.
“If she’d have gone through the January Sale – and maybe she just wasn’t physically ready for that – you would have thought she could have brought $450,000 or something like that.
“So, it was good buying I think. That mare, to me, is just going to keep throwing nice horses and may never throw another filly, so it’s a punt on something that could turn into money.”
Count De Rupee, who is by Real Impact, has had 20 starts for seven wins, including the G2 Victory Stakes (1200m) and $1 million The Gong (1600m) and was a narrow runner-up to I’m Thunderstruck in the $7.5m Golden Eagle (1500m).
The Prices are eyeing the Group 1 Epsom Handicap (1600m) with Count De Rupee this spring.
He was the first foal from Timeless Choice, who also had a Maurice colt that died after birth and a Real Impact called Bias before the Dundeel filly.
The sister to former Australian Horse of the Year, Lankan Rupee, has since produced a colt by Written Tycoon and is in-foal to Maurice.
Price said the Dundeel filly, who was produced for sale by Arrowfield Stud, has similarities to both her father and half-brother.
“She’s got a lot of attributes of the brother but she’s also got a fair bit of Dundeel in her; she’s got the flaxen tail and the same strong bay colours that Dundeel had,” Price said.
“To look at on type, you can see the genetic make up of the dam and the sire.”
She was one of the headline lots from the first half of the opening day of this year’s National Yearling Sale, which also saw a daughter of Snitzel and Black Heart Bart’s half-sibling Rebel Sister sell to Kacy Fogden for $250,000.
