GERRY: LIFE IS A COMPETITION
SELLING yearlings or fridges – it’s all the same to Harvey Norman mogul and Magic Millions horse auction festival owner Gerry Harvey. “Like with an ad that sells 10 fridges instead of three, then you’ve succeeded. It’s the same here with horses, if someone can get more people at their sale over another. Life is a competition.“The auction week starts today after a spectacular horse race on the Surfers Paradise beach this morning.
NRL great turned horse breeder Billy Slater may have spent a few days selfisolating watching the cricket, but he hasn’t let that dampen his enthusiasm for the Magic Millions sale.
Slater, who rode trackwork for trainer Gai Waterhouse as a teenager, will be selling for just the second time with a brown colt sired by champion thoroughbred Redoute’s Choice in Wednesday’s sale.
In 2019, he sold his first racehorse, Wandjina, for $180,000, and he is heavily involved as an event ambassador.
On Tuesday, the accomplished rider will thunder down the Surfers Paradise beachfront on horseback in the annual spectacle race preceding The Star Gold Coast Magic Millions Barrier Draw.
“I’ll be down at the beach racing. It’s always a lot of fun and what a great spectacle it is,” he said.
“I hope it’s a fast one this year because I’ve got a lot of sand in the face the last couple of years.”
Slater’s new colt is one of a record number of 1200-plus yearlings up for sale this year.
“This year is a little bit different to others with some events like the polo unable to get up and running but … for Magic Millions to still provide its core business and a platform for breeders to sell their stock is fantastic,” he said.
“The racing industry in general has done a fantastic job to continue running and there has been over $700m in prizemoney last year that continued to fund the industry.”
Slater flew to the Coast on Sunday and quarantined as a precaution, taking a COVID test that came back negative on Monday.
He said despite international buyers being unable to fly into Australia to inspect horses personally, he had been heartened by the interest shown in his colt.
“We have had really good numbers pre-sale that have gone and inspected our colt at Arrowfield Stud (Upper Hunter Valley) and I’m sure a lot of people have done that as a contingency plan if it (online sales) did not go ahead,” he said.
Slater’s colt has an impressive lineage.
The dam is Inishowen, sired by Encosta De Lago, a three-time winner at 1318m and 2000m.
“A lot goes in to selecting your stallions and we were very lucky to have the
opportunity to have … a champion sire like Redoute’s Choice,” he said.
“He is probably going to get out over a little bit of ground, but hopefully he is forward enough to be a player in the juvenile races as well.”