Managing director of the Magic Millions Vin Cox says he’s pleased with how day one of the 2012 Magic Millions yearling sales have progressed.

This is despite the average sales figure dropping by about $7,000 from what it was last year.

Cox says that can be a bit misleading though and overall turnover is actually up.

“The average is down a touch, our clearance of 75 percent is quite sound…the meeting is up $5,000,” he said.

“While we might not have sold the big horses at this stage there’s been more horses for more money.”

He’s also confident numbers will improve given the most popular lots are yet to pass through the ring.

“I think it’ll tighten up as we go, there should be some very good sales today,” he said.

They’ll also be relying on a little bit of panic to set in over the weekend as well.

“As people start missing horses we force their hand a little bit and they start paying a bit more money,” he said.

Cox says a particularly good sign has been the number of people travelling to the Gold Coast in what’s created a ‘vast cross section’ of buyers from around Australia and the world.

In one example the Hong Kong Jockey Club has spent about $1 million just on day one.

All that being said today’s results will be crucial to the sales overall performance with some big ticket lots going under the hammer.

“There are some very nice horses coming up today so it’ll be very interesting to see where we end up at the end of today,” he said.