Filly brings record $5.3M at Tattersalls

A $5,330,000 Sadler's Wells filly set a world-record price for a yearling filly at auction Friday at the final session of the Tattersalls October Book 1 yearling sale in Newmarket, England.

The price shattered the previous world-record price of $4.4 million for the yearling filly Moon's Whisper when she sold to Shadwell Estate at the 2000 Keeneland September yearling sale in Lexington.

The world-record filly, Hip No. 612, sold for 2.5 million guineas to former mobile phone executive Craig Bennett. Bennett, represented in the bidding by agent Charlie Gordon-Watson, said the filly will join his string with Newmarket-based trainer Luca Cumani.

Oaks Farm Stables, agent, sold the filly on behalf of Brittas House Stud. The filly is a full sister to the 2000 Irish champion juvenile filly, Sequoyah, and to the 2007 Group 1-winning filly Listen. Her dam, Brigid, has produced stakes winner Oyster Catcher, by Bluebird.

The record price helped lift the Tattersalls auction's final-session figures. The fourth and final session sold 121 yearlings for about $40,348,854, yielding an average price of about $333,462 and a median price of about $192,780. Considered in the local currency of guineas, the figures were up 31 percent for gross, 9 percent for average, and 3 percent for median.

The four-day cumulative figures saw an uptick in gross receipts, but the average and median both declined slightly this year as compared with last season. The four days of Book 1 sold 510 yearlings for about $139,062,924, up 18 percent from last season, when 432 horses sold. The average of about $272,672 was essentially the same as last year, falling about $209. The median of about $171,360 was off by 2 percent.