Platinum Scissors Sale Topper
Brian Russell - Bloodstock Media Service - 2 May 2007
Platinum Scissors, a three-years younger Group 1 winning brother of supersire Redoute’s Choice located at Heather Belle Pascoe’s Plaintree Farms Stud near Toowoomba, gained the distinction of supplying in his first crop the highest priced lot at the 2007 William Inglis Melbourne Autumn yearling sale, one which was held last Sunday and Monday.
A bay colt purchased by R. Freyer for $57,500, it was one of two yearlings closely related to the great galloper Better Loosen Up, the 1990-91 Australian Horse of the Year whose 17 wins included seven Group 1 successes, one of a track record setting victory in the1990 Cox Plate, prepared for the vendors, Mr and Mrs Howard Martin of Berrigan, south western NSW, by Bob Watson.
The two youngsters are both from sisters with the Platinum Scissors yearling being from Rulable, a winner of 12 races, including three in Melbourne, and their other yearling, a colt which went to the same buyer for $26,000, being by the Sadler’s Wells Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Carnegie, a Darley shuttle sire, and the first foal of a more modest winner, Siblings.
Both mares are by Kingston Rule, a winner of the 1990 Melbourne Cup in track record time bred in America and raced here by a leading Melbourne businessman and racing identity David Hains. Kingston Rule has historic breeding in that he is from an Australian mare Hains sent to America and had mated to a giant of their racing in Secretariat. Like Better Loosen Up named Australian Horse of the Year, she was the Hains bred and raced Rose of Kingston.
The dams of the yearlings are among the10 winners from12 foals produced by the speedy country performer Pure Imagination, a daughter of a mare by Biscay’s brother Tattenham who was a half-sister to Better Loosen Up. Rulable, Siblings, Pure Imagination and Better Loosen Up were all bred by the Martins. They sold Better Loosen Up out of the paddock for only $10,000.
Their two Melbourne sale yearlings were among 44 which went to buyers in the $20,000 to $57,500 price range, including the second highest priced lot and top selling filly at $48,000. Offered by the Monomeith Stud, it is a grey filly in the second crop of the Swettenham Stud, Nagambie,Victoria based up and coming sire Dash for Cash and from the Centaine winner Centarena.
The statistics for the sale are 306 sold for a gross of $3,217,350 and an average of $10,514. Many of the yearlings are expected to add to the reputation of the sale as a source of good winners. Recent graduates include VRC Australian Cup hero Pompeii Ruler and other stakes performers in Isanami, Dracs Back and Smart and Mighty.