$400,000 Wootton Bassett Colt Tops Inglis Classic Day 1
Demand is high for colts from the second Australian crop of Wootton Bassett and it surfaced at Inglis Classic on Sunday when Willow Park Stud sold the top lot of the session for $400,000.
An athletic brown colt that very much fit the image of what you expected to see, he was purchased by McEvoy Mitchell Racing / Belmont Bloodstock and is a half-brother to two winners including good metro winner Cadetship from unraced blueblood So You Think mare Elegant Air
“To get $400,000, we’re over the moon, we put a reserve of $150,000 on him, thinking he might make $250,000 so to get $400,000, it’s a huge result,’’ said Glenn Burrows of Willow Park.
“Full credit to [Inglis Bloodstock CEO] Sebastian, he saw the colt on the farm and said, ‘instead of going to Easter, why don’t you bring him to Classic and stand him out’. I was in two minds…but we came here and it was bang on, he’s been the leading horse in our draft all the way through, in fact yesterday he broke a record [for inspections] for a Saturday and my stats go back 20 years so we knew we were cooking with gas.”
From a well proven elite female family that has produced Group I winners over a variety of distances, Elegant Air is a half-sister to Group I ATC Champagne Stakes winner Go Indy Go and two more Group III winners Air Assault and Essay Raider.
Further back and the family features Caulfield Cup winner Southern Speed, the dam of Japanese Group II winner Cosmo Kuranda, and the Golden Slipper winners Ha Ha and Rory’s Jester.
Aside from the obvious fact Wootton Bassett is one of the hottest sires in the world right now coming off a year in which he was 2024 Champion European 2YO Sire, there is also plenty of merit in this colt being from a daughter of So You Think, who is increasingly making a mark as a broodmare sire.
So You Think mares have produced eight stakes-winners including last Saturday’s Inglis Millennium winner Rivellino and they also include Golden Slipper winner and Champion 2YO Fireburn as well as European Group I winner Puchkine, who is by Starspangledbanner.