CHRISTIAN AND HIS TWO LION-HEARTS
A DEAD-HEAT in the Group 1 Newmarket Handicap (1200m) at Flemington would be an ideal result for owner-breeder and former Collingwood premiership star Michael Christian.
Christian bred and sold In Secret, $5 second favourite with TAB, whereas he not only bred, but part-owns Bella Nipotina, a $15 chance in pre-nomination markets on the big sprint.
But 90 seconds in the auction ring on Monday at Oaklands Junction, 10 minutes north of Melbourne Airport, could be just as critical.
Christian’s boutique operation Longwood Thoroughbred Farm has 24 yearlings going through the ring at the Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale, led by In Secret’s half-sister, Lot 397, a Snitzel filly out of the Magpie great’s former racemareturned-blue hen Eloping.
Lot 397 will be sold at about 1.46pm on Monday.
“We’re parading, parading, parading, particularly the really popular ones are in the box, out of the box, in the box out, of the box,” Christian said.
“It’s really, really busy for them and then you’ve got 90 seconds, two minutes in the ring and hope it all comes together.
“She’s a very powerful filly with a beautiful walking action, not overly tall but she’s got plenty of strength … she looks like she’ll run and run early as a two-year-old.”
The Eloping filly has been paraded about 150 times in the lead-up to three-day Premier Sale, which ends on Tuesday.
The prized yearling is the second half-sister to In Secret to go through the ring, but first since the Godolphin filly burst on to the scene last year, winning the Group 1 Coolmore Stud Stakes.
Godolphin paid $900,000 for In Secret in 2021.
She could be worth five times that amount now, not that sheik Mohammed would ever sell.
Trainer Mick Price last year snared a bargain, buying half-sister, Comeau, for $200,000 about a month before In Secret’s debut win. Christian has a weanling sister to In Secret on the ground, while Longwood-bred Eloping is back in foal to I Am Invincible for a second relation.