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Victorian goes to $1m for first time, buying daughter of freshman sire
There were a couple of million-dollar firsts just before lunchtime on Wednesday at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, when an Ole Kirk filly became the first seven-figure lot of the second session of the sale.
The Newhaven Park filly became the first product of one of this year's freshman stallions to sell for seven figures when she was knocked down to Robbie Griffiths and Mathew de Kock.
It was the first time the Group 1-winning Cranbourne trainer has gone to $1 million for a yearling.
"It went so quickly you didn't get a chance to get nervous," Griffiths said.
"But you've got to pay if you want the Group 1 winners and that's where we're trying to get to.
"I didn't know who I was up against, but there would have been some pretty serious players wanting a Group 1 filly like her."
The filly is out of the Domesday mare Supara, who was runner-up in an Emancipation Stakes and Surround Stakes at Group 2 level and has already thrown a Group 1 placegetter, Snitzel colt Brosnan.
That female side combined with the Black Caviar blood shared by Written Tycoon entire Ole Kirk, who is out of a sister to the legendary sprinter, convinced Griffiths to put his faith in the first-season sire product.
"We know how good Written Tycoon is and Ole Kirk is out of the family of a champion in Black Caviar, and we've seen how successful All Too Hard is," Griffiths said.
"If a young stallion is going to make a success, he's got the genetics and the race record to do it.
"I think that's why there was so much competition; you've got the right genetics and the mare's proven to have a Group 1 performer already.
"There's everything suggesting she'll be a Group 1 horse so you've got to pay for those."
Griffiths' buy set a new benchmark for the most paid for a yearling by a first-season sire at this year's Gold Coast Yearling Sale, bettering the $775,000 James Harron paid for a colt by his dual Group 1 winner King's Legacy, a son of Redoute's Choice.
Wootton Bassett had a colt, who is a half-brother to Think About It, sell for $900,000 after the Ole Kirk filly, while Bivouac had a filly out of Secretly Discreet sell to Ciaron Maher for $675,000 on Day 1.
