'I feel like I got a lot of value for my money' - John Stewart to the fore at Magic Millions with A$3.5 million spend

When big-spending US-based owner John Stewart announced a family emergency would curtail his intended trip to the Magic Millions yearling sale, there was much conjecture surrounding whether the Resolute Racing magnate would splash any cash in absentia on the Gold Coast. 

But after spending A$3,520,000 (£1.76m/€2.12m) on nine yearlings during the opening session, headed by the two biggest-priced lots, speculation about whether Stewart would come to the table was well and truly dashed.

Stewart and his Resolute Racing team were famously the A$9 million underbidders on Winx’s filly, who is now named Quinceanera, at last year’s Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale, though Stewart did not leave that auction empty-handed, parting with A$5.4m on six yearlings, who are all now in training in Australia. 

After promising to return to the action during the 2025 sales series, Stewart was proven to be a man of his word, chipping away at all corners of the market throughout the opening hours of day one, with his purchases reaching a high of A$1.8m, while he also bought towards the lower end, paying A$80,000 for a daughter of Blue Point. 

Stewart delivered the first seven-figure lot of the day when going to A$1.6 million for a filly by I Am Invincible, the second foal out of multiple Group 1 winner Avantage and had beat off fierce competition from Te Akau’s David Ellis, who raced the daughter of Fastnet Rock and purchased her first foal, a filly by Wootton Bassett, for A$2.1 million in the same ring 12 months ago.

Bidding online from Geneva, Stewart kept the temperature at boiling point, going even further to A$1.8m a few lots later to secure a filly by Written Tycoon, who will fittingly head into training with Ciaron Maher, the mastermind behind the career of the youngster’s dam Away Game, whose five wins included a triumph in the 2020 Magic Millions 2YO Classic. 

Bred by Yulong, who paid A$4m for Away Game at the National Sale in 2022, Lot 185 is the first foal out of the mare and Stewart told ANZ Bloodstock News the Resolute team had made a conscious decision to focus on blue-chip fillies with a view to developing them into high-class broodmares.

“My friends at Coolmore, they were the underbidders on Away Game last year when the mare went through the ring, so that tells you the quality of the horse,” he told ANZ Bloodstock News. 

“I'm new to the industry, I've been in it only for 18 months now, but we’ve had a lot of success and the way we are doing that is that we are buying at the top of the market and agnostic of price we are evaluating the horses we want to buy. 

John Stewart (centre) was in action on the opening day of the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling SaleCredit: Racing Post/Burton

“With Lot 182 [Avantage] and Lot 185 [Away Game], my notes on my sheet is that, ‘We are 100 per cent buying’ and I guess we bought the other seven horses to entertain ourselves while we were waiting for the other two.”

Stewart said he had bought Pedigrees 360, a breeding analysis programme which has helped aid him in his hunt for specific fillies with the pedigrees he wants to invest in. 

“I purchased that pedigree website at the end of last December, so it’s a tool I’ve been using for the last year,” he said. “When you look back at the horses that we’ve purchased, you’ll see some common aspects. 

“One of the reasons I am really attracted to Australia as a breeder is the other Danzig bloodline is probably more prominent in Australia than it is anywhere else, with Danehill being more popular there and you get double Danzig in these bloodlines. 

“A lot of our best horses in the stable have Danzig in their pedigrees, especially on the bottom, and it is almost impossible to get a double Danzig horse in America, so it's good being able to find those types of horses that line up really well with our families that we’re trying to develop. 

"We’re already thinking five or ten years out of what we want our broodmare band and families to look like, so we’re actively looking at every sale and auction for those types of horses. Then when we find those horses, we go for it.”

With this method, Stewart said he was able to buy many of the yearlings on Tuesday for far less than he had anticipated and was even willing to stretch further for some of them. 

“I bought Lot 72 [a Blue Point filly] for A$80,000, it was one that was on my list that I wanted to buy. It could have gone for A$250,000 and I still would have bought that horse. 

"I don’t really put a price on the horse, I look at the portfolio. My background is that I am an investor, I own a private equity firm and so my funds have a portfolio of investment and I own multiple companies in each fund and that’s the way I look at my horses; they are a portfolio of investment.

“Even though I paid A$1.8 million for Away Game, when you average up the nine horses that I bought I feel like I got a lot of value for my money, given the quality of the level of horses I was able to buy today.”

On the decision to send the filly to Maher, Stewart said: “We’ve got a good relationship. We met at the [Kentucky] Derby last year. I really like him a lot.

“We talked about the horses going through the ring and we were on the phone together. He wanted her to come to him so badly that he’s buying a portion of the horses. We’re really excited for that partnership.”

With the filly being purchased by an American and sent into training with Maher, it was somewhat of a full circle moment, with Away Game having been trained by Maher and raced by US native Hannah Jennings (nee Maitheson), who was also on the Gold Coast on Tuesday to witness the mare’s first progeny go through the ring, which would have undoubtedly evoked memories of when she purchased the daughter of Snitzel in conjunction with Kerri Radcliffe in the same auditorium for A$425,000 from Mill Park in 2019. 

Maher, who is already training for Stewart, expressed his delight that Away Game’s filly would be joining his powerhouse operation.

“I’m rapt, I thought she was clearly one of the fillies of the sale,” said the trainer. “Away Game took her and her owners – who were from the States as well, funnily enough – on a great ride and hopefully this filly can take John and Chelsea [Stone] on a similar ride.

“We’ve got a couple for him that he bought last year. I went over to the Kentucky Derby and he and Sheikh Fahad raced a horse together and had a good yarn to him over there.

The Written Tycoon filly out of Away Game sells to John Stewart for A$1.8 million on the first day of Magic MillionsCredit: Magic Millions

“John and Chelsey love coming down to Australia, Chelsey especially, and they’re very keen. Clearly they have some very good quality horses and are prepared to go after the ones they want.”

Maher said the youngster showed some similarities to her mother. 

“She’s a beautiful filly, [from a] great farm and hopefully she can be as good as her mum,” he said.

“[There’s] similar movement, she’s probably got a little bit more substance than Away Game, who was relatively neat.

“She was an overachiever on the track and it looks like she’s going to be an overachiever in the breeding barn as well.”

Meanwhile, Yulong’s general manager, Vin Cox, said everyone at the operation was ‘stoked’ after being delivered their biggest payday as breeders, with the outfit being better known for dominating the buyer sheet 

He said: “We are absolutely stoked. It’s the best result we’ve had at Yulong ever. It’s a great result for Mr Zhang and his family to realise a price in that order, it’s just wonderful. 

“You never expect that sort of money, you always hope, and it was well beyond where we’d hoped.”

Yulong’s global investment in racing and breeding has reached just about every corner of the globe and Cox said he was over the moon to see it paying off for Yulong’s owner Yuesheng Zhang. 

“It’s justification for all the investment and the time and faith that Mr Zhang has put in, obviously in the industry generally, but here in Australia as well,” said Cox.

“I think the guys that should be congratulated are the staff. They’ve worked really hard, they’re under a lot of pressure when you’ve got a horse like that. They’re vested in what we’re doing. The culture at Yulong is very strong. We’ve had a lot of success over the last 12 months, even longer, but they enjoy it as much as the owners do.

“We’ve got other horses who potentially won’t make as much money, but are equally high-profile, and for them to handle that pressure and deliver results is a great credit to them.”

Cox said from very early on they knew the filly was special and that she had taken every step of the preparation process in her stride. 

“Right from very early on we knew we had a pretty special article and all the way through she’s been an easy filly, low maintenance, looks like a racehorse – looks a lot like her mother – and I hope for Resolute Racing and Mr John Stewart’s sake that she turns out better,” he said. 

On the decision to sell her rather than race her, Cox said: “Any of those sort of decisions are tough, but Yulong is about operating across all facets of the industry at the elite level and I think you could safely say that we did that today.”

Fastnet the huge Avantage for Stewart

The second foal out of the multiple Group 1-winning mare Avantage will likely be heading to Waller’s stable as Stewart began to make his plans for his purchases on day one at the Magic Millions sale. 

Avantage herself was bought by Coolmore Stud – who offered her filly for sale on Tuesday – for a record NZ$4.1m (£1.86m/€2.24m) on a Gavelhouse online sale in 2021 and Stewart said the fact Coolmore had forked out that much on the daughter of Fastnet Rock played a huge part in his decision to buy the daughter of I Am Invincible. 

“Globally you have the big institutions like Godolphin, Yulong and Coolmore who have done a really good job at breeding horses, and when you see their names, as someone who is newer to the industry, you know that they just represent quality,” he said. “So when you are going to put out the money that I am going to put out, I am more confident because the Coolmore name is attached to it.

Coolmore's I Am Invincible filly out of Avantage makes A$1.6 million to John StewartCredit: Magic Millions

“Tom and MV [Magnier] have become really good friends,. Of course we have a business relationship and I know they like to make money, as I do as well, but I wouldn’t be able to do half of what I have been able to do in the industry without the support of Tom and MV and the Coolmore team.”

The Resolute Racing owner said he never consulted the Coolmore team before making the significant transaction on Tuesday.  

“I never even talked to them about buying this horse before I bought it, but when you see the name Coolmore, they are known for buying the best mares at the sales and I go up against them all the time when I try to buy these top mares,” he said. 

Fastnet Rock is considered one of the best broodmare sires in the world. His statistics make for impressive reading, with his daughters having produced 134 stakes winners, headed by 15 at the elite level. Stewart said his admiration for the now pensioned Coolmore stallion’s abilities as a broodmare filled him with confidence to secure Avantage’s second foal.

“There is no better broodmare sire than Fastnet Rock and we know that very well; we already have some Fastnet Rock mares in our barn and that is one of the things that we look for,” he said. 

“If you examine our purchases, you can see pretty clearly the horses we are going after and looking at.”

Stewart continued: “They [the Waller team] do a lot of work for me on other things because I'm not down there physically. We are evaluating some of our big horses in the US to race down in Australia. My big gelding Goliath, who won the King George and ran in the Japan Cup, I have plans for him to run in Australia this year and Waller’s team have been very helpful and that does make a difference, so I would say Chris will probably get the nod with the Avantage filly.”

Coolmore’s Tom Magnier said: “She was a lovely filly and she’s been that since she was a foal. John Stewart is a great friend of ours and he’s been a great supporter of us down here and I wish him every success with this filly.

“It is a great page and a great family, and I hope she becomes a successful broodmare – she was one of our nicest fillies of the year.

“We had a reserve on her and we were happy to keep her up to a level. Fair play to Magic Millions for getting the overseas people involved in the sales.

“She’s [Avantage] been a great producer and when you see the filly on the track here, we’re delighted.”

Magnier reported that Avantage has an I Am Invincible filly at foot and is in foal to Zoustar.

When asked if he intended to be active for the rest of the sale or if he was planning to down tools after Tuesday’s nine-lot spending spree, Stewart said: “Today was our biggest day just based on what we had. 

“When you go to these sales you put a lot on your list and I actually got everything that I wanted today. There are a few more on our list, but it’s two or three a day, but it’s pretty much a trend with me, I say I’m done and then I go buy three or four more – I have a bad shopping problem.

“I did expect to pay a lot more for some of the horses today. I paid some premium prices for yearlings today, but you’re gonna do that because the market is strong all over the world, but then when you look at the fact I bought nine horses for A$3,520,000, I got pretty good value there. I’m paying 63 cents on the dollar and it definitely makes me more bullish and that’s good for Australian racing because it makes me more active – it’s a great incentive.”

Stewart’s nine purchases – eight fillies and one colt – also included a daughter of Coolmore’s first-season sire Home Affairs, who they paid Silverdale Farm A$625,000 for. The youngster is is out of the Group 3-placed multiple winner Witherspoon. 

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