Maurice colt out of Mosheen sets a record as figures show gains
Fireworks were seen early during the yearling session of the 2022 JRHA Select Sale when a colt by Real Steel (Deep Impact), a half-brother to Sciacchetra (Manhattan Café), was bought for 180,000000yen, (US$1,333,334) by DMM.com, a horse racing partnership based at Tokyo.
"We were looking for a nice colt by Real Steal, and I am very happy to buy him," Hiroki Awazu, racing manager for DMM Dream Club said.
"As there is no Deep Impact and very a few Heart's Cry's in the catalogue, it is not very easy to predict this year's market and I intend to put a lot of energy at early part of sale. Plus our trainer Yoshito Yahagi recommends him as the best colt by Real Steel in the catalogue."
The session topper came later in the day for Lot 76, a colt by Arrowfield shuttler Maurice (Screen Hero) out of multiple Australian Group 1 winner Mosheen (Fastnet Rock).
The colt's reserve was set at 100,000,000yen (US$740,740) and an opening bid came at 200,000,000yen (US$1.48 million). After the price passed over 300,000,000yen, s battle ensued between Susumu Fujita and Masahiro Noda, with the winning bid of 450,000,000yen (US$3,333,334) coming from Masahiro Noda of Danox Company Ltd.
"This is very best one in consignments from Northern Farm and Northern Racing today" Katsumi Yoshida, breeder and consignor of sales topper said.
"Foals out of Mosheen have been getting better and better, crop by crop, and this yearling, who is eighth foal out of Mosheen, is a fantastic individual, therefore, I set the highest reserved price in all our consignments. Many owners and trainers who visited and saw him at Northern Farm are enchanted by him and I expected he would be expensive. But the price, 450 million yen, is much more than I expected."
During the session, 222 of the 233 lots offered were sold for 12,870,000,000yen, (US$95,333,333), a 10.6 per cent increase on the 2021 figure. The average of 57,972,973yen (US$429,429) was up 12.6 per cent up and the clearance rate rose from 93.4 per cent in 2021 to 95.3 per cent in 2022. Both of average price and clearance rate are new record at yearling session of JRHA.
"This is amazing market. As it was record breaking market last year and I thought it was difficult to pass over it this year, this is pleasant surprise," Katsumi Yoshida of Northern Farm, the biggest consignor at the sale, comments at the conclusion of session.
"I am very impressed with the depth of buyers, which include a lot of newcomers. And the most important aspect of today's market is very high clearance rate.
"While this year's catalogue does not include any yearling by Deep Impact, several stallions, such as Duramente, Epiphaneia and some others, played the role of replacements. I am very happy to have depth of young stallions in Japan now.
"I would like to thank everybody who support the market, first of all, buyers, all consignors who offered yearlings with such high quality, and all involved in managing the sale."
