Coolmore goes to $2.7m for the brother to its Group 1-winning son of Snitzel
Coolmore and Chris Waller are yet to decide whether Switzerland has run his last race, but they took extreme steps to secure a replacement for the Group 1 winner on Day 1 of the Inglis Easter Yearling Sale.
Tom Magnier on Sunday went to $2.7 million to secure the Coolmore Stud Stakes winner’s brother, a colt by Snitzel out of the American mare Ms Bad Behavior.
A full brother to Switzerland, Lot 76 (Snitzel x Ms Bad Behavior) from the @ArrowfieldStud draft sells for $2.7 million!!! Congratulations to @CoolmoreAus and @cwallerracing! What an exciting prospect. #InglisEaster pic.twitter.com/0MivL2nCem
— Inglis (@inglis_sales) April 6, 2025
That is $1.2m more than Tom Magnier paid for Switzerland at the same sale two years ago and the Coolmore Australia principal said not only his racetrack performances, but the interest in his impending stud career spurred them on to buy his brother.
“A lot of people are enquiring about Switzerland going to stud at the moment, but this is a lovely type and obviously Snitzel is a fantastic sire,” Magnier said.
“Chris and all the team really like the horse. The colt’s fund, thankfully, is going very well and we have some great people in the fund, great supporters of Coolmore, and we just hope to have a bit of luck.”
The $2.7m colt is the most expensive colt sold at the Easter Sale since the brother to Sunlight (Zoustar x Solar Charged), who races at Kandinsky Abstract, sold for $3m in 2022.
Magnier said Switzerland’s brother exhibited many similarities to his well-performed sibling.
“He’s a strong horse like his brother, loads of quality like his brother, just one of the standouts of the sale,” Magnier said.
Magnier’s big buy claimed the mantle as the highest-priced lot of the sale to that point from another son of Snitzel, the colt out of La Mexicana, who sold to James Harron and TFI for $1.7m 25 minutes into the sale.
Shortly before the $2.7m colt sold, I Am Invincible had a filly out of Missile Mantra sell for $1.2m and that stallion later saw her filly out of Pippie sell for $1.4m.
Other high-priced lots of Day 1 include youngsters by Zoustar, Extreme Choice and So You Think who each sold for $1.15m.
Magnier said Waller was letting the dust settle on Switzerland’s seventh placing in Saturday’s Group 1 T J Smith Stakes, with a decision on giving another run before heading to stud to be made later in the week.
“We’re deciding that at the moment,” Magnier said. “We just need to get this week out of the way and have a think about it.
“The races were yesterday, the sales are today, so nothing is planed out yet.”
