Scene set for competitive Ready to Run Sale as New Zealand Bloodstock adapts to Te Rapa
Strong buyer registration numbers and graduate success has Rolston hopeful of strong participation at two-year-old auction
The racetrack surroundings of Te Rapa are foreign for a New Zealand horse sale but the show must go on – and that it will over the next two days.
New Zealand Bloodstock’s Karaka complex, widely considered one of the best equine sales facilities in the world, remains off-limits, leaving the auction house to resort to shifting the two-year-old Ready to Run sale to the Waikato region and conduct it in virtual manner.
The auctioneers will be there, so too will many New Zealand agents and trainers acting for a variety of domestic and international clients, but the horses will not.
“It’s pretty unusual for us. We’ve normally got the clip-clopping of horses’ hooves around us and we’re flat out doing our final inspections, but instead we’re at Te Rapa setting up the online bidding and the temporary sales office,” NZB’s bloodstock sales manager Danny Rolston told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“We’ve been really thorough with our marketing, with our communications and all the systems are in place and we’re really confident we’ve got everything we need to host the sale with as minimal disruption as possible.
“We’re simulating what you’d be used to at Karaka, minus the horse. Each lot will come up, the auctioneer will introduce the horse, the breeze-up footage will play and instead of seeing vision of the horse walking around the ring, it will be the vendor’s conformation video which is played (while bidding takes place).”
The NZB sale, which starts today, and the progeny of champion sire Savabeel (Zabeel), who provided the New Zealand 2,000 and 1,000 Guineas winners at Riccarton earlier this month, and juveniles by his late Waikato Stud barnmate Sacred Falls (O’Reilly), should also prove popular as will lots by Australian sires Deep Field (Northern Meteor) and Exceed And Excel (Danehill).
Both sires are extremely popular in Hong Kong, as is New Zealand’s Per Incanto (Street Cry).
Rolston reported there had been strong interest in the sale from Australian buyers as well as those from Asian jurisdictions.
He also took heart from the recent Inglis Ready2Race and Magic Millions 2YOs In Training Sales which achieved clearance rates of 81 and 73 per cent respectively on the day of their auctions.
“We are now in the point of the process where all the credit applications and buyer registrations are coming in. We’re still 24 hours away now, but the feeling from those early registrations is really good,” he said.
“We knew based on our pre-sale canvassing that we had good engagement and that’s converting into registrations and hopefully that will turn into some good sale prices.
“We’ve obviously got a bigger sale by numbers catalogued (than Inglis and Magic Millions), so we’ve got a job to do, but I think we can be really encouraged by clearance rates and prices at the two earlier two-year-old sales to say that there’s going to be enough demand to hold us in good stead.”
Vendor Janine Dunlop of Phoenix Park, which has eight two-year-olds on offer, echoed comments made to ANZ Bloodstock News earlier in the week by trainer Graeme Rogerson, who reported strong interest from agents, veterinarians and buyers ahead of the two-day sale.
“I think it is a good opportunity for bloodstock agents to gain new contacts,” Dunlop said.
“The phone has been going red hot from people in Australia and offshore asking about particular lots. People who have bought horses off me before or have been underbidders have been ringing.
“People are coming out of the woodwork and the interest is there. It is not only the Phoenix Park brand but also the New Zealand brand as well, there is a lot of positivity there.”
Leading Australian trainers such as Ciaron Maher and David Eustace, Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr and Tony Gollan have shown early interest in the sale while Te Akau’s David Ellis, the New Zealand industry’s biggest buyer, has also suggested he will be active over the next two days.
“Six years ago, I went there and bought only two horses – both of them turned out to be Group 1 winners. Gingernuts won three Group 1s including the New Zealand Derby and the Rosehill Guineas, while Hall Of Fame won the Levin Classic at Trentham before we sold him to Hong Kong for big money,” Ellis said.
“At the next year’s sale, I bought Te Akau Shark, who won at Group 1 level on the world stage at Randwick. He also ran third in the Cox Plate from the outside gate.
“I’ve bought a lot of really good horses from this sale over the years, and that’s what’s made me so keen to keep coming back.”
Woburn Farm’s Adrian Stanley has also been buoyed by the on-farm inspections in the lead up to the sale.
“The horses are in their own environment and are pretty relaxed when they are parading so the buyers get to see the best of them when viewing them at home,” Stanley said.
“It has been a bit different trying to put all the pieces together, but it is working out well so far.
“We have great local agents to help out the international buyers.”
NZB Ready to Run Sale graduates include Hong Kong stars Golden Sixty (Medaglia D’Oro) and Beat The Clock (Hinchinbrook), while Australian Group 1-winning graduates include Turn Me Loose (Iffraaj) and Mongolian Khan (Holy Roman Emperor).
“The (spring success of New Zealand-breds in Australia) and graduates of this sale in particular are our biggest assets this week,” Rolston said.
“If we didn’t have those graduates and that recent success of the Kiwi-breds in Australia, I think we’d be in a different scenario and that’s what’s really going to get us through this year.”
The NZB sale coverage will start today from 12.45pm NZ time (10.45am AEDT, 9.45am AEST) with the first lot of the 262 on offer across the two-day sale going through the ring at 1pm NZ time.