From The Straight News 3rd April 2025

In May last year, New Zealand trainer, breeder and industry all-rounder Jim Wallace sold his dual Oaks winner Pennyweka at the Inglis Chairman’s Sale for $1.6 million.

Nearly three weeks later, another New Zealand industry icon, Te Akau’s David Ellis, traded in 10-time Group 1 winner Imperatriz for an Australasian record price of $6.6 million at the Magic Millions National Sale. Both mares were bought by Yulong’s Zhang Yuesheng.

Pennyweka, the New Zealand Oaks and Australian Oaks winner of 2023, was paraded at Inglis’ Riverside Stables complex in Sydney and was one of nine $1 million mares to change hands at last year’s Inglis’ annual breeding stock sale night of nights. Then, when it was Imperatriz’s time to be sold late on May 28, 2024, Ellis and his wife Karyn Fenton-Ellis were at Magic Millions’ Bundall complex on the Gold Coast, but their immensely valuable daughter of I Am Invincible was not.

With five of her 10 career Group 1s achieved in season 2023-24, all in Melbourne including the Lightning and a second William Reid earlier that autumn, Imperatriz was instead resting in a paddock at Ellis’ Te Akau Stud in New Zealand none the wiser as to what all the fuss was about. There was vision shown of her parading, but it was not in Australia, let alone in the state of Queensland, as bids came from people such as Coolmore’s Tom Magnier and online from eventual buyer Zhang.

And her absence was for many reasons, not least of all because if she was at Bundall, 10 per cent of her valuation at the time of her flight from Auckland to Australia would have been payable in GST by her syndicate of owners. That GST component on Imperatriz once she was imported to Australia after being sold for the benchmark amount of $6.6 million was instead borne by Zhang’s Yulong Investments. In contrast, Wallace and his co-owners of Pennyweka were subjected to paying a GST amount based on a valuation provided by an authorised industry expert, such as a Federation of Bloodstock Agents Australia (FBAA) member.

Despite bearing the financial impost, as well as her flight costs of several thousands of dollars, the fact Pennyweka paraded directly in front of the buying bench may have elicited extra bids and more than covered that additional expense incurred by the mare’s group of owners.
“Rightly or wrongly, (we thought) she might be better off facing the market in Australia,” Wallace said on Wednesday. “That sale is very well promoted and it’s got a lot of hype around it and we thought it was a good place to (sell Pennyweka).”

In response to the market, and with the surety the sale of Imperatriz has given Magic Millions, four New Zealand-based mares – three for Te Akau as well as multiple Group winner Babylon Berlin – will be offered in absentia at this year’s National Sale.

The new International Section, announced by the company on Tuesday, will be held after its opening race fillies and mares session on May 27.

Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch believes the initiative appeals not only to owners of New Zealand-based race fillies and mares, but also to sellers in the northern hemisphere. “There’s obviously mares all over the world that suit Australia and there are mares on the other side of the world who are in foal to some really hot horses to southern hemisphere time and this initiative gives (breeders) an opportunity to sell into the Australian market, as it does the New Zealanders,” Bowditch told The Straight. “Given the fact this is a live sale, it’ll be a hugely attended sale from both the domestic and international market. It’s a very commercial catalogue, so that gives those sellers the best of both worlds that even if, unfortunately, they can’t get their horse here, they still can play in that market and sell within it. We’re excited by it. We thought it’s a good little concept and a good section to promote.”

In an ultra-competitive market between the two major Australian sales companies, especially when it comes to broodmares, every little edge can help.

Te Akau has committed Group 1 Zabeel Classic winner Campionessa (Contributer), a half-sister to stakes winners Leedox and Tennessee, Group 2 winner Wolverine (Tivaci) and Millefiori (Iffraaj), a stakes-performed half-sister to Group 1 winner Gringotts and from the family of Winx, to the new session. “These are mares with outstanding race records, pedigrees and potential, and we’re confident they’ll appeal to both domestic and international breeders via this proven platform,” Ellis said.

The Ben and Ryan Foote-trained seven-year-old mare Babylon Berlin will also go under the hammer during the same abridged afternoon international session. A daughter of All Too Hard and a half-sister to Group 3 winner Darci Be Good, Babylon Berlin won seven stakes races and was four times Group 1-placed.

As for the tax implications of the mares sold in absentia, the buyers will almost certainly be commercial breeders who are eligible to claim back the GST paid when they bring them into Australia to go to stud.
“It’s a very commercial catalogue, so that gives those sellers the best of both worlds that even if, unfortunately, they can’t get their horse here, they still can play in that market and sell within it,” Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch 

Owners of horses imported to the country on a temporary basis who subsequently leave again in less than 12 months, such as last week’s Flemington Listed winner Alabama Lass, are not subjected to the GST payment when they exit Australia. The prices of horses bought at public auction, such as the New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka Yearling and Ready to Run sales, are used by customs to calculate the GST payable when imported to Australia by those new owners.

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