It was, the regulars agreed, like nothing they had ever seen before.
Thousands of people were standing right alongside them, press-ing six and seven deep as they vied for the best vantage spots at this most prestigious of Sydney venues. Most of these strangers had never even been here before and would probably, hopefully, never return. Cheerfully impatient, noisy and completely out of place, they had eyes only for one on this mild autumn afternoon. And who could blame them?
Right from the start, even as a baby, he had been the talk of the town, his presence hugely anticipated long before his arrival, his softly handsome looks and gentle personality much discussed even by those who had never actually seen him.
This was hardly surprising. His birth, at 3.16 am on 17 August 2007, was announced in every major Australian newspaper and relayed around the world within minutes on the internet, with words like ‘strapping’ and ‘impressive’ used to describe all of his 47 kilograms.
His mother, one representative reported, was ‘as proud as Lucifer’ immediately after delivery, and had herself performed admirably. Nothing less had been expected, given what everyone knew she could do and had done in the past. But there was always a niggling concern that this, her first pregnancy, could be complicated. A feeling any family would understand, given the circumstance.
But this was the very best of families, so every possible scenario was mapped out well ahead of time, every contingency worked through in case something did go amiss. In the end, all went according to nature’s plan, and mother and son did well. And as he started his life on the picture-perfect property in the famous Hunter Valley in New South Wales, he was carefully shielded from prying eyes for as long as possible, to allow his famous mother to nurture him calmly in pristine surroundings, and to encourage him to grow at his own pace, untroubled by the expectations of the world outside the manicured pastures.
There was even a media deal in place to ensure only one outlet had the right to capture his and his mother’s images. Little wonder the team that watched his every move, noting every step, certainly every scratch and scrape, nicknamed him Rock Star.
As he grew into his gangly body, this team had gradually relinquished their hold on the light-framed youngster, only for others to take over in his education and care. And now, on this autumn afternoon in Sydney, all their work was coming to fruition, and the next chapter of his already extraordinary life was set to start.
As he walked into clear public view for the first time, a ripple of excitement ran through the thousands-strong crowd, and those who weren’t at the front of the throng gazed enviously at the hundred or so seated around the arena he was heading towards. ‘Standing room only,’ one old timer remarked to a companion, as they tried to edge their way closer to one of the overhead monitors to watch this debut. ‘And we’re doing the standing.’
But at least they could see him, if from a distance, and as he stepped into the main ring, a naturally lit circle of fame, for the next few minutes he was theirs. Public property for all to admire, right there for the taking, as some of the wealthiest, most astute schools fought to make him their own and take him home. For this flashy young thoroughbred, deep bay in colour with a slightly crooked white blaze running down his nose and four white socks on his legs, represented the finest blend of equine blood at Australasia’s 2009 Easter Yearling Sale—a son of an exceptional English-bred stayer called Galileo and, even more spectacularly, the first born of the great mare Makybe Diva, winner of three consecutive Melbourne Cups and $14.5 million in prize money.
As it happened, this particular youngster wasn’t only a publicist’s dream on paper; he actually looked the part, a natural-born show stopper, almost an artist’s impression of a pretty young horse. Too pretty, some experts would mutter later, a ‘softie’ in body if not heart. Yet, as the colt started his lope around the ring, a hush washed over the unusually large crowd, as if there was a collective holding of breath to make sure they heard the opening bid. And there it was: ‘$500,000!’ the chief auctioneer Jonathan D’Arcy sang out, and a thrill slipped through the air, an almost involuntary shudder of exhilaration as everyone registered the exact sum on offer and then waited, again, to see how strong the next bid would be—could be—how high it would climb.
In any other year, experts confidently predicted, this yearling colt would fetch $3 million, maybe even more under the hammer, as major money men vied for position and rose to the challenge, upping the ante time and again as they tried to secure the young horse and somehow, if only for a moment, get their own name up in lights at this extraordinary equine theatre. But not this year.
This particular sale on 5 April 2009 fell right in the centre of the global financial crisis, which meant this promoter’s fantasy could easily turn into a corporate nightmare with dire repercussions for the country’s entire racing industry. A grim picture had been painted from the outset for the overall sale itself, with one senior auctioneer warning his vendors to expect a 30 per cent downfall in prices for their horses. And by the time Lot 90 walked out of his stall and into the sale ring, things were dramatically worse than that, 40 per cent down on what the same equine auction house had reaped for its clients just 12 months ago.
Still, if ever a horse could turn things around, surely it was this one.
Not even a major recession could take the shine off the first son of the country’s favourite mare, a racehorse whose name was known to every Australian.
‘$600,000 …’ Or could it? ‘$700,000.’
Within minutes, the final figure of $1.5 million was reached—a stunning result by normal standards.
But this was not an ordinary ring of sale. Here, dreams were sold in broad daylight, and part of their intoxicating magic was the impossible price tags, large and small. Champions were either bought cheaply, because of scruffy family trees or physical imperfections, or they were regally bred and worth a royal fortune.
So a sense of anti-climax, if not quite outright disappointment, ran through the crowd as the colt left them, because this was Australasia’s elite thoroughbred yearling auction yard and global financial dramas weren’t supposed to penetrate. Financial commonsense, after all, often seemed in short supply here. This was where sheikhs and property barons and mining magnates gathered each year to outdo each other, spending astronomical sums of money on young, untried horses who hadn’t even seen a saddle, let alone had a rider on their backs. Nor had they been asked to gallop over any distance on a racetrack when they went into the ring, potential their only defining quality.
To anyone outside this self-contained world, complete with its own language and professional standards, this makes little sense. But making sense to outsiders makes no difference to anyone involved in this cocoon; money changes hands quickly, often at staggering levels. Just 12 months ago, some 28 yearlings had topped the million-dollar mark in the space of three days.
But not today. On this April afternoon, such prices seemed like a generation away, the $1.5 million a relief for all of Rock Star’s connections. Even though the world’s mega buyers seemed unusually subdued, brought to heel by the tough financial times, the colt had been sold for more than a million dollars, a respectable sum in any year.
He had not been humiliated in the round, his wonderful race mare mother had not been humbled—and the tourist crowd was happy, clapping in appreciation as the youngster left the ring and the new owner, who most couldn’t see and fewer still would have recognised, signed the slip of paper that proved Rock Star was now his.
Danny O’Brien, a Melbourne-based trainer, had apparently come north with exactly $1.5 million up his sleeve to spend on this colt. He was lucky.
As the busy first-day sale crowd thinned over the next three days, two other youngsters sold for a million dollars, while a third—a strong brown colt by Encosta de Lago, Australia’s most expensive sire—topped the lot, the hammer falling at $1.8 million.
This comparative unknown, then, was the real show stopper, stealing Rock Star’s thunder by $300,000. Was he better bred, a more correctly conformed individual? Was there more of a ‘buzz’ about the colt within the moneyed-up circles of serious buyers? Or was it simply a matter of expert egos taking a fancy to the colt? Beauty, the old saying goes, is in the eye of the beholder and at these pageants, every eye sees a thousand different things.
Seventeen other yearlings went for $700,000 or more, further proof that hope and just a touch of madness do spring eternal when it comes to imagining what lies ahead for these thoroughbred babies. Something really does happens to grown men and women when they draw near these youngsters, something potent enough to make them throw natural caution to the wind.
And this was just one yearling sale, in one city. The same thing happens around Australia through the first five months of every year, an annual punt of whopping proportion, a recurring display of extraordinary excess and constant dreaming.
But for me, like so many others, the sale this year is different. Every single yearling entering these arenas represents a competitor for a filly nowhere near the sale yard. A filly I had bred and hoped one day, not too far away, to race.