B2B Thoroughbreds sat on their hands until Day 3 of Magic Millions’ National Broodmare Sale, but ended up with the mare they wanted after winning the intense battle for Rubisaki just before lunchtime on Thursday.
Ricky Surace Jnr paid $1.4 million for the daughter of Rubick, who was offered by Victoria’s Morningside Stud in-foal to four-time Australian Champion Stallion, Snitzel.
The seven-year-old was the only mare Surace came to the Gold Coast determined to buy.
“She’s a stunning physical, in-foal to Snitzel and a terrific racehorse,” Surace said.
“We’re really excited. We had to pay a lot of money for her, but it is well-spent.
“She was the only one in the whole sale that we wanted so we did have to pay a little bit extra for her, but these horses are so hard to buy and the market is selective now.
“These are mares that you want to be breeding out of and selling them.”
The sale was a stellar result for Morningside, which paid $1m for Rubisaki at the same trade two years ago.
That was after the $85,000 Inglis Classic Book 2 yearling’s racing career with Patrick Payne ended after 20 starts for eight wins, including Group 2 success in the Kewney Stakes (1400m) and a Group 1 placing in the Sangster Stakes (1200m).
The visit to Snitzel was Rubisaki’s second cover, having foaled a Written Tycoon last year, which Morningside retained and Tom Rowsthorn said was a welcome result as it planned to downsize its broodmare band.
“This is the most expensive mare we’ve sold at a broodmare sale, so we’re very excited,” he said.
“We’ll scale back a fair bit and hang onto some mares and just have a bit more fun with it rather than have such a big broodmare band that take up a lot of time and effort.
“(We’ll) focus on some cattle and have fun with a smaller bunch of mares, about five to ten.”
Rowsthorn said Rubisaki’s Written Tycoon colt was a striking specimen, which Morningside was keen to offer as a yearling as opposed to offering with their weanling draft earlier in the week, and Surace was open to what B2B would do with the Snitzel foal.
“We haven’t made plans, we’ll just get her home and foal her down then decide that in a year’s time,” he said.
“We like to sell most of our things, but if it is a nice filly then there’s no reason why we wouldn’t race her.”
Around an hour after Rubisaki sold, Single Blonde became the final day’s second seven-figure lot with Coolmore paying $1.2m for the Not A Single Doubt mare who produced the $800,000 I Am Invincible foal that topped the National Weanling Sale earlier in the week.