A look into the background of Saturday’s fairytale winner of the Caulfield Cup, Half Yours

Inglis Digital has a new pin-up horse following Saturday's Caulfield Cup win by Half Yours.

The son of St Jean became the first horse sold via Inglis Digital to win an Australian racing 'major' when he completed a remarkable spring ascension in the $5 million Group 1 handicap at Caulfield.

Half Yours was offered at the 2024 Inglis Digital November (Late) Online Sale as part of the Halo Racing reduction sale following the death of Col McKenna and was bought for $305,000 by Damon Gabbedy's Belmont Bloodstock on behalf of trainers Tony and Calvin McEvoy.

He has since won five of nine starts and $3,471,400 in stakes.

"It's incredible how far he's come as a horse,'' Tony McEvoy said after the race.

"You can't do a thing like that with every horse, he's a special horse and he's just thrived on the preparation and he's got bigger and stronger and better.

"The way he came into the mounting yard today he looked like he'd arrived as a stayer and then he went and did that so it's very exciting.

"It means so much. We work bloody hard in this game and it's great when it comes off like this.''

Half Yours is the 112th Group 1-winning Inglis graduate since 2018 and joins the likes of She's Extreme, Mariamia and Bella Vella as horses to win at the highest level after being sold via Inglis Digital.

The Caulfield Cup win was the crowning glory for St Jean, a son of three-time Melbourne Cup-winning sire Teofilo who started his career in Ireland and was exported to Australia to be trained by Aaron Purcell, who trained him to win a Group 3 Auckland Cup (2400m).

Now 15 years old, St Jean covered just 102 mares across his first eight seasons at stud for 67 live foals.

He has had just 22 individual runners, 12 of whom have combined for a total of 28 wins.

Half Yours has contributed a quarter of them with wins in the Group 3 Naturalism Stakes (2000m) and Listed Caloundra Cup (2400m) the only other Black Type wins by products of St Jean.

Full stats for St Jean as a sire are available at Racing & Sports and reveal that his next most prolific winners are Keevs and Buzzaroon, with four wins apiece, while his next-highest earner is Keevs with $108,165.

Half Yours is one of only 13 live foals from his 2019 coverings and is out of the Desert King mare La Gazelle, whom McKenna owned.

He is the seventh and final foal from the mare who retired a five-start maiden and died in the weeks following foaling Half Yours.