A Bowral-bred baby sister to Sunline has returned home to the Highlands after failing to reach its expected million-dollar price tag at the recent Magic Millions Yearling Sales on the Gold Coast.

Offered up by Inverness Stud, the impeccably bred Danehill-Songline filly dominated thoroughbred headlines up north and created plenty of excitement in the sale ring but fell agonisingly short of its million-dollar reserve price.

A magnificent type, the frenzied bidding war started at $300,000 and rose rapidly until bidding stalled at $800,000.

“I was hoping for more than $800,000 and I would have sold her with one more bid,” owner Dr Jack Wooldridge said.

“We will now look at racing her before an eventual stud career.”

Inverness Stud manager Ross Bone sighted a weak market as the reason the filly failed to reach the magic million mark.

“The market was just very, very tough and the usually strong Asian contingent weren’t there in the same numbers,” he said.

“We’re not too disappointed though, we weren’t even going to sell her originally.

“We believe her residual value as a brood mare is worth a million alone.”

Bone was confident the thoroughbred blue blood would make a handy racehorse.

“She’s so superbly bred, bred in the purple,” he said.

“And she’s a magnificent specimen, over 16 hands at just 14 months old.

“She’s also a very athletic type of horse and she has a lot of potential.”

The filly shares the same mother as champion racemare Sunline, winner of the Cox Plate for two successive years and recently voted the best mare in the world on turf.

But in the heady world of thoroughbred horseracing, the best genes do not always equate to racetrack success.

Inverness Stud offered up nine yearlings at the sale and Bone was pleased with the overall results.

Best of the bunch was a Lycius-Rose Babu colt that fetched $72,500.