Record Weanling Results at MM National

An insatiable thirst for quality from the first-class buying bench at the Gold Coast led to the sale smashing previous benchmarks with records across the board. The Book 1 sale average price on Friday evening sat at over $105,000 and a clearance rate at 89 per cent. The sale gross is also a record, over $31.6 million. After buying yesterday's top seller and the overall sale topper for $1 million yesterday, leading Melbourne trainer Ciaron Maher swept up Fundamentalist's first foal, a colt by Zoustar for $560,000. Maher finished the sale as leading buyer. The colt, offered by Segenhoe Stud, as agent, was presented as Lot 362 and attracted plenty of interest before the gavel fell on Maher's bid. "He's out of a really tough race mare," Maher pointed out. "Fundamentalist - she was The Autumn Sun's sparring partner. He nabbed her in the JJ Atkins as a 2YO and then the Randwick Guineas. She (Fundamentalist) is a daughter of Not a Single Doubt - a stallion I love and have had a lot of success with and Zoustar is absolutely flying at the moment." Two other youngsters sold for over half a million dollars on Friday - Woodside Park Stud's Written Tycoon-Hell or Highwater colt ($510,000 to Rosemont Stud) and just minutes later Coolmore Stud's Frankel-Iiex Excelsa filly ($530,000 to Bruce Mackenzie).