Smart Missile keeps firing in the ring & on the track
Australia’s leading second season sire Smart Missile continued to please vendors with his third crop of yearlings at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Sale averaging $107,419 for 31 lots. That’s better than five times his fee which has remained at $20,000 + GST for five years.
His top price of $300,000 was achieved by a pair of fillies, the daughter of Kitalpha offered by Daandine Stud and purchased by Newgate Thoroughbred Services, and Newgate Farm’s half-sister to Listed winner Russian Revolution, bought by China Horse Club. That figure of $300,000 is the second-highest price paid for a Smart Missile yearling, exceeded only by his first-crop debut 2YO winner Missile Coda, purchased by Woppitt Bloodstock.
Smart Missile’s first offering of yearlings in 2017 attracted strong interest from a wide range of local and international buyers. Three colts were bought at $260,000, $150,000 and $110,000 for the Hong Kong market; John Warren paid $250,000 on behalf of Highclere Australia for Yarraman Park’s Miss Vandal filly; and New Zealand buyers signed for a colt and a filly.
Several Australian stables and syndicators added a Smart Missile to their purchases, among them Clarry Conners, Hawkes Racing, Lindsay Park, Ciaron Maher, Gai Waterhouse, Matt Laurie, Matt Cumani, Dalziel Racing and Prime Thoroughbreds.
Meanwhile, 3YOs Ahndras (in Brisbane), Arleigh (in Adelaide), Stephenstihls (in New Zealand) and Friday’s Canberra winner Like A Shot have taken Smart Missile’s current season list of winners to thirty-four.
Arleigh, an Arrowfield home-bred grand-daughter of champion filly Alinghi, was an impressive maiden winner at Morphettville on Wednesday. Trainer Phillip Stokes expected her to be competitive first-up from a spell and so it proved as she bounced zestily out of the gates, settled second under a hold and sprinted clear to score untested by almost four lengths in 57.13 for the 1000 metres.
Watch Arleigh win at Morphettville.
Across the Tasman, the Mike Breslin-trained Stephenstihls has put himself in the frame for the $1 million New Zealand Derby G1 on 4 March with a stakes placing and two consecutive wins in progressive company, most recently over 1400 metres at Trentham on 7 January.
Watch Stephenstihls win at Trentham.
Smart Missile has 30 lots on offer at next month’s Inglis Classic Sale, including two colts and two fillies in the Arrowfield draft, and 11 yearlings catalogued for the Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale.
