Japanese trainer splashes record $3.2m on filly at Magic Millions sale
Leading Japanese trainer Mitsu Nakauchida has paid $3.2 million for a Home Affairs-Sunlight filly to break the Magic Millions yearling sales record, just a day after English insurance tycoon Phil Cunningham set a new one with a $2.8 million buy.
The Coolmore Stud filly, out of champion three-year-old Sunlight, was the big-ticket item on Friday and exceeded expectations at the Gold Coast sale.
Mitsumasa Nakauchida trained this year’s Cox Plate second-placegetter, Prognosis.Credit: Getty Images
Bidding started at $600,000 and raced past the record Cunningham, via top Australian trainer Ciaron Maher, paid for a Snitzel-Humma Humma colt early on Thursday.
The filly is the third foal out of Sunlight, which was bought by Coolmore’s Tom Magnier for $4.2 million at the 2020 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale. Her first two foals sold for $1.4 million.
Home Affairs, a son of champion sire I Am Invincible, is a third season sire with a service fee last year of $82,500. He was a two-time group 1 winner, taking out the Coolmore Stud and Lightning Stakes as a three-year-old.
Cunningham, an English insurance magnate, had paid $2.8 million for a Snitzel colt on Thursday.
James McDonald celebrates after winning the 2022 Lightning Stakes on Home Affairs at Flemington.Credit: Getty Images
The price broke the record set in 2023 for an I Am Invincible-Anaheed colt, which went for $2.7 million to Coolmore’s Tom Magnier.
“I knew a colt of that quality, bred on a good farm, he was a standout for us, and those top-line colts, you always know you’ve got to bid up for them,” Maher told Sky Racing.
