New Zealand Bloodstock’s National Weanling Sale got off to an exciting start at Karaka on Thursday morning with three weanlings fetching $140,000 or more within the first hour, headed by prominent owner Gary Harding’s $170,000 purchase of a sale-topping Satono Aladdin filly.

Offered by Brighthill Farm and catalogued as Lot 25, the attractive bay filly surpassed the $150,000 price paid for last year’s sale-topping colt by Per Incanto. She also set a new record weanling price for Rich Hill Stud’s high-flying shuttle stallion Satono Aladdin, beating the A$145,000 price tag for a filly in Melbourne just last week.

Thursday’s headline-grabbing filly is the second foal out of the Rip Van Winkle mare Henley Road, who placed on the racetrack and is a half-sister to the multiple Group One-winning Karaka weanling graduate Callsign Mav.

Bloodstock agent John Cameron withstood a spirited bidding battle to secure the filly, who will be retained by Harding to race in his familiar white and orange colours.

“There were a few things that drew me to her today, just not so much the price,” Harding said. “She’s a very nice filly. We also bought a weanling filly in Australia the previous week, so I thought we should pick out a mate for her from this sale as well.

“We had a good look at quite a few of the weanlings in this catalogue, and she’s the one that ticked the boxes for us. She’s the one that we wanted.

“She’s a lovely filly with a good walk and a bit of presence about her, and she’s by a stallion that’s doing a good job, so she has a bit going for her.

“We’ll be keeping her and taking her through to race. Hopefully she’ll come up well. Buying weanlings is a higher-risk venture than yearlings, so we’ll just have to wait and see. But she was the one we particularly wanted today and I’m pleased that we’ve got her.”

Brighthill Farm sold the sale-topping filly on behalf of Laura Day, who bought Henley Road for just $1850 on Gavelhouse.com.

A total of nine weanlings sold for $100,000 or more at Karaka on Thursday. The first of them came only a few minutes after the 11am start time, with Lot 3 bought by GTS Bloodstock for $140,000.

Offered by Curraghmore, the colt is by this season’s outstanding first-season sire Super Seth and is out of well-related Pierro mare Drama Series. Herself the dam of talented three-year-old filly Raptylight, who finished fourth in stakes company this season, Drama Series is out of a half-sister to the Group One winner First Seal.

That $140,000 price was later matched by Lot 36, a Proisir colt from the Curraghmore draft. Renowned pinhookers Riversley Park secured the colt, whose unraced dam descends from a top-class European family featuring Group One stars Hellenic, Islington, Greek Dance, Mountain High and Fiorente.

That was the first of four six-figure yearlings for Proisir, who later had fillies sell for $130,000 and $105,000 and a colt for $110,000.