Champion trainer Gai Waterhouse blew her sale ring rivals away when an opening bid of $2 million offered by husband, leading bookmaker Rob Waterhouse was not bettered as the sales complex came to a standstill.

The price bettered last year's record price of $1.55 million paid for the recent Sydney stakes placed two-year-old Arlington.

Waterhouse, who trained the colt's dam Sunday Joy to a win in the Group One Australian Oaks, was beaming after the hammer fell.

"The most fabulous colt I've ever seen," she said. "There's never been a horse in the southern hemisphere bred like him."

"You've got three dams - the mother, the grand mother and the great grand mother all Oaks winners - you can't buy them."

"He's the most horse to ever go through a sale ring in the southern hemisphere. He's fabulous."

Waterhouse said had the colt stepped into a sale ring in Europe he would have been sought out by the world's leading buyers.

"They'd pay 10 million pounds for him in the UK. You just can't buy them. I've just been to Kentucky three months ago and you can't buy them."

The first foal of Sunday Joy was in a class of his own according to Waterhouse.

"This is the horse of the sale. This is the horse of the year - just outstanding," she said.

"I'm very lucky to be able to buy it."

"You can not by a horse with that sort of breeding anywhere in the world for that sort of money."

"I'm absolutely over the moon - it's the most exciting thing that's ever happened (for me). "Oh other than being married and my children."

Waterhouse said should the outstanding individual race to stakes success on the track he would prove the bargain of the century.

"He only has to win a listed race and he's worth it - actually ten or twenty times that."

As well as having a world class pedigree the colt is an exceptional individual according to Waterhouse.

"I loved everything. He's poetry in motion. Just so exciting."

"The group that bought the horse - made up of people both overseas and in Australia - they realised the value of the colt."

The colt's breeder, Strawberry Hill Stud's John Singleton, was delighted with the result.

"It's great," Singleton said. "It's nice to have some luck. He was a great colt and I'm glad he'll go to a good home."

"Things haven't always gone to plan during the past year. Belle du Jour missed to Sadler's Wells and then she died during the spring giving birth to a Redoute's Choice (foal)."