Racing: Champion Kiwi race mare Melody Belle bought for A$2.6m by Yulong Investment on the Gold Coast

Melody Belle won her only Australian Group 1, the A$1m Empire Rose, at Flemington in 2019. Photo / Bruno Cannatelli

Champion New Zealand race mare Melody Belle will move to the state of her greatest triumph after being bought for A$2.6 million at a broodmare sale on the Gold Coast yesterday.

But that was not without a fight from her original yearling purchaser David Ellis, the boss of Te Akau Racing, who bid up to A$2m for the 14-time Group 1 winner.

Ultimately he fell short as Victorian-based breeding and racing operation Yulong Investment beat out an online Japanese bidder to become the new owners of the mare.

Melody Belle, who finished her career last Saturday with a brave fifth in the Doomben Cup, was sold at the Magic Million broodmare sale because she was owned by a large syndicate — a difficult ownership structure in which to make crucial breeding decisions.

Pre-sale predictions of between A$2m and A$3.2m proved correct after Ellis opened the bidding at A$1m and stayed in the fight until A$2m.

That meant some of the bigger Australian studs weren't involved and it was left to big-spending Yulong to secure the wonderful mare and she will visit their flagship stallion Written Tycoon.

While many of Australia's stallion elite are based in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, Written Tycoon moved back to Victoria from New South Wales this year and stands for a fee of A$165,000 per service.

That means for the foreseeable future Melody Belle will be based in Victoria, the state in which she won her only Australian Group 1, the A$1m Empire Rose at Flemington in 2019. A week later she recorded the greatest beaten performance of her career at the same track when second to internationally-rated mare Magic Wand in the McKinnon Stakes.

While the connections of Melody Belle will be saddened her racing career is over, her A$2.6m price tag on top of her $4.2m career earnings make for a stunning return on the $57,500 paid for her at the Karaka yearling sales five years ago.

Some will feel her price deserved to be higher but because she has raced until the end of her six-year-old season, her first foal won't be on the ground until she is an eight-year-old, relatively old for a high-class broodmare prospect these days.

Yulong Stud chief operating officer Sam Fairgray said he was not surprised the business, owned by Chinese billionaire Yuesheng Zhang, had to pay in the mid-$2m for the mare affectionately known as Valerie.

"Mares likes this don't come on the market very often and as well as being a 14-time Group 1 winner, she was a very good two-year-old so we are very excited to get her," he said.

This season's Levin Stakes winner Bonham, still only a three-year-old filly, fetched a massive A$1.6million while former NZ Oaks winner Sentimental Miss went for $470,000.