A “premium opportunity” and the need for speed persuaded the Rosemont Alliance to lay out close to $1 million dollars on a colt by first season sire Blue Point, whose influence on the Magic Millions continues to grow.
A newcomer to the VOBIS Sires scheme, Darley Northwood Park’s son of revered stallion Sharmadal has commanded huge respect in his first season at stud, and Anthony Mithen’s Rosemont operation rode the Blue Point wave on the fourth day at the Gold Coast when they paid $900,000 for the half-brother to Group 1 winning-filly Amelia’s Jewel.
Mithen believes Amelia’s Jewel, who delivered a debut Group 1 win for Western Australia trainer Simon Miller in the Northerly Stakes, is second only to Anamoe when it comes to assessing the best horses in training in Australia.
Amelia’s Jewel is the second foal produced by the Canford Cliffs mare Bumbasina, and Rosemont and renowned Bloodstock agent Suman Hedge will be hoping her colt can reach the same heights as his half-sister when he joins the growing stable of Annabel Neasham.
“We all loved him as a physical specimen,” said Mithen.
“We really like the stallion [Blue Point] and had a long chat about him yesterday, and from that conversation it made sense for us to go all in on this boy.
“He’s a half-brother to probably the best horse in the country other than Anamoe, and we just thought how exciting it would be for our partners to be racing a horse with that sort of profile. He looks every bit as good as his Dad, who was a freak of a horse and offered what we’re all looking for – speed, sped, speed.
“We brought Annabel [Neasham] in because we were aware that she also really liked the horse, and now we’re the proud owners and she’s the proud trainer.”
Whilst the purchasing partners initially valued Lot 690 around the $800,000 mark, ultimately they were prepared to go higher for such a premium product.
“We probably had him valued perhaps a little lower than $900,000, but the more we spoke about him the more we thought he’s worth it and so in the end we were happy to pay the money,” said Mithen.
“When you have to pay $900,000 for the progeny of a first season stallion, it just shows you how strong the market is.
“It’s a ridiculously strong market for those proven stallions, their colts are largely out of our price range so we had to set our sights a bit lower and try to find some value elsewhere.
“We were averaging about $380,000 before we blew the budget on this colt, but that’s OK. We’ve got enough in the budget to buy a couple of premium opportunities, and this colt fell firmly into that category.”
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