Ellis snaps up Snitzel colt as buoyant trade continues at Karaka
A Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) colt topped day two of the New Zealand Bloodstock (NZB) Karaka Yearling Sale yesterday but it was the continuing demand for well-bred fillies that brought the second session to a crescendo.
After the sister to Prowess (Proisir) and Japanese Emperor (Satono Aladdin) sold for $1.9 million and $900,000 respectively on Sunday, sought after fillies by Savabeel (Zabeel), bought for $650,000 and $620,000, and a daughter of champion stallion Proisir (Choisir), purchased for $600,000, all changing hands inside the final 90 minutes of the session.
Earlier, it was Karaka kingpin David Ellis who continued his dominance of the NZB sale, adding nine yearlings to the Te Akau stable on day two, and his most expensive addition was an $825,000 son of Snitzel, who can lay claim to being the sale’s highest-priced colt so far.
Consigned by Haunui Farm, he is the first foal out of the Chitty family’s Sydney Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) runner-up Rondinella (Ocean Park), a four-time winner from 1400 metres to 2100 metres for Roger James and Robert Wellwood before being transferred to Australia and the care of John O’Shea.
A three-quarter-sister to the winner of six stakes races in Celebrity Dream (Thorn Park), Rondinella was nine times stakes placed in total, three of them at Group 1 level.
“We’re absolutely over the moon to be able to take a Snitzel colt of that quality home. We thought that he was one of the best colts we’ve seen at Karaka in five or six years. Karaka Millions, here we come,” Ellis said.
“He’s got beautiful size, balance and looks like he’s got a good temperament. You can see in my book – ‘Real two-year-old type. Karaka Millions winner’.
“There was good competition for him, but there is on all of these good colts. Snitzel is one of the best sires we’ve had in this part of the world in the last 50 years, he’s that good, and this is the sort of money that you have to pay to buy a colt with this quality. We’re thrilled. But I didn’t have a lot left – I was on the ropes.”
Rondinella provided the Chittys with plenty of racetrack highlights and now she’s continued that on into the sale ring with her first foal.
“We were very proud of Rondinella when she was racing. She earned a million dollars for us and this colt is a nice horse, as nice a yearling as we have bred and he represents the ninth generation of Foxona, our foundation mare we bought from Seton Otway for £60 as a weanling,” Mark Chitty said.
“Pencarrow has Irion from the same family whose [Super Seth] colt made top money on Sunday [$700,000]. It doesn’t seem to matter which stallion is involved, the family keeps throwing good colts and fillies.”
While Te Akau raced Snitzel’s 2021 Diamond Stakes (Sistema Stakes) (Gr 1, 1200m) winning two-year-old Sword Of State, who has just completed his second season at Cambridge Stud, it was another Group 1-winning stallion that Ellis compared his expensive purchase to another great to.
“He’s not the same sort of horse as Sword Of State. I think he’s more like Darci Brahma, who was champion two-year-old, three-year-old and four-year-old,” Ellis said.
“He won a Group 1 in Australia as a two-year-old, and I think this colt is the same. After the Karaka Millions, I could see us turning him out for a week and then getting him ready for the Golden Slipper. That’s the plan.”