The 2024 Inglis Easter Yearling sale is almost seven months away, but anticipation around the sale ramped up on Sunday night when it was announced the first foal from legendary racemare Winx was a confirmed entry.
The filly by Pierro out of the 25-time Group 1 winner, who was born on October 7 last year, will command worldwide attention at the sale that will be held in Sydney on April 7 and 8.
The filly will be offered by Coolmore, which is where Pierro stands, on behalf of Winx’s owners Peter and Patty Tighe, Woppitt Bloodstock, Elizabeth Treweeke and Rick Treweeke.
“Winx has given us all unexplainable joy and it was agreed by the ownership group that by offering this filly for sale, we make available the opportunity for someone else to manage the next racing chapter of what has been a great story,” Peter Tighe said.
Winx’s filly will be one of the highest-profile yearlings ever offered in Australia with no foals out of Australian racing’s other modern-day great, Black Caviar, having made it to the sale ring.
The record price for a yearling in Australia is $5 million for the a half-brother to Black Caviar, by Redoute’s Choice out of Helsinge, at the 2013 Easter sale.
Winx is one of the all-time greats of Australian racing, having won 37 of 43 starts including her final 33 racetrack appearances and four Cox Plates.
Her filly will be offered on the second day of the sale, which Inglis Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch expects will ensure anticipation the likes of which have never been seen at Warwick Farm’s Riverside sales complex.
“This is the rarest of opportunities and the greatest of honours to be afforded the chance to showcase this unique filly to a global audience,” Hutch said.
“I have been lucky enough to see the filly on a number of occasions and I think the biggest compliment that I can pay her is that independent of her illustrious mother, she is a special filly in her own right.
“The Inglis Easter Yearling Sale has long been known as the best of the best, but to have the daughter of Winx, one of the greatest racehorses of all time, as part of the catalogue is a truly special opportunity, not just in the context of the Australian market, but the international bloodstock market as a whole.
“The 2024 Inglis Easter Yearling Sale is going to be a particularly special occasion which will generate unprecedented excitement and anticipation.”
The Pierro filly is Winx’s lone foal after three trips to the covering barn with the daughter of Street Cry having failed to go full term with her first foal, who was by I Am Invincible, while she failed to get in-foal to Snitzel last year.
It was announced earlier this year that she would return to Snitzel for the 2023 breeding season.
