$900,000 Bellatrix Star Headed to Widden

A multiple Group winner and G1 placed in the Group I VRC Coolmore Stud Stakes, Bellatrix Star topped the Inglis Digital Sale on Wednesday selling for $900,000.

 

The Mark Walker-trained Bellatrix Star was the target of some of the biggest bloodstock operations in the world and was eventually sold to Widden Stud and Julia Ritchie’s Bangaloe Stud.

 

The daughter of Widden Stud’s stalwart sire Star Witness was initially purchased by John Galvin of Fortuna Racing and Te Akau’s Sir David Ellis as a yearling and will be served by Widden’s Champion stallion Zoustar.

Galvin and his Fortuna Racing partners were delighted with today’s outcome.

“It’s a fantastic result for us, it really is,’’ Galvin said.

“We had a reserve of $500,000 on her and personally I hoped she would sell somewhere between $600,000 and $1m so to get to the top end of that spread is absolutely amazing. To make $900,000 is simply incredible.

“I can’t fault the entire Inglis team. [Bloodstock Sales Manager and New Zealand representative] Brett [Gilding] was the liaison person for us and he was in constant contact keeping me up to date with everything that was happening along the way, providing feedback from various farms that you guys had interested in the mare and everything like that.

“We’re very happy with the professionalism Inglis brought to this entire process.’’

Widden’s Antony Thompson added: “She’s a lovely, fast filly with a very impressive record, her race career was sadly cut a bit short but to beat the older horses in the Schillaci like she did, she’s a Stakes winner at Flemington and to then run 2nd in a Coolmore, it’s a perfect profile of a beautiful filly for us and Julia Ritchie to send to Zoustar, whom she is a shareholder in.

“She earned over $1m in prizemoney, she won multiple Stakes races at two and three so we knew we were going to have to dig deep to buy her but I thought she was absolutely worth that price. Grant [Burrill] and Adam [Henry] from Widden Victoria visited her yesterday and were glowing in their praise.

“Mark Walker and Sir David Ellis and the entire Te Akau team identify such lovely physicals at the sales and they’ve had so much success so it’s nice to secure one of their yearling selections as a broodmare to join the Widden team.

“The Inglis team was, as usual, fantastic to deal with, Inglis Digital is the world’s leading platform to trade stock on and we’ve been a big believer in it from the outset.’’