Sire power: stallion strength to the fore as catalogue for 2024 NZB Karaka Yearling Sale released

The best-bred crop of champion New Zealand sire Proisir (Choisir), the return of boom shuttler Satono Aladdin (Deep Impact) and a number of must-have Savabeels (Zabeel) are among the highlights of the 2024 New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka Yearling Sale.

On the back of a successful Ready to Run Sale, the auction house yesterday released a bumper catalogue for its annual six-day sale, with 1,125 horses lotted across two increased books, an offering that NZB believes will capture the attention of both domestic and leading international thoroughbred investors.  

The sale’s traditional pre-sale entree, the six-race Karaka Millions night, will return to Ellerslie on Saturday, January 27, before the first of six days of selling at the NZB complex starts the following morning with the first of 682 Book 1 horses to go under the hammer.

After much debate between vendors, the auction house and buyers following this year’s sale, NZB has elected to retain a full six-session sale, as it appears fewer Kiwi horses will be offered at Australian sales next year.

“It is slightly bigger than previous years, but we’re still sticking to the similar format that we’ve had the past few years with three days for Book 1 and three days for Book 2,” NZB sales manager Kane Jones said.

“I think the slightly bigger numbers in Book 1 are a reflection of our stallion strength in New Zealand and the quality of the book overall.

“As we know, last season the New Zealand-breds had a phenomenal season and this season has started extremely strongly as well and we’ve had a number of high-quality graduates winning Group 1 races in Australia and further afield as well.”

Lib Petagna’s Elsdon Park, heading into its second Karaka sale under the banner, has a draft of 17 yearlings in Book 1 including a Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) half-brother to Listed-winning two-year-old Ethereal Star (Snitzel), a $600,000 purchase from the 2022 sale.

A Zoustar (Northern Meteor) first foal out of Petagna’s Listed winner Evalina (I Am Invincible) and an Alabama Express (Redoute’s Choice) out of another of the breeder’s well-performed mares, the stakes winner Santa Catarina (Savabeel), are also set to go under the hammer in January.

“Lib has got a stunning broodmare band. I did the maths and over half the yearlings we’ve got going to Karaka are either out of stakes-placed or stakes-winning mares or of those mares they’ve left a stakes winner,” Elsdon Park manager Kerrie Cox said.

“A lot of those mares are young as well, there’s a handful of first foals there, so it’s really exciting as we’re hopefully going to have these mares for a long time and producing these sort of yearlings straight off the bat is pretty nice.”

Rich Hill Stud, home to reigning champion sire Proisir, the exciting returnee Satono Aladdin and the Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) producing sire Ace High (High Chaparral), has a draft of 24 yearlings in Book 1 and another 20 lots in Book 2.

Japan’s Satono Aladdin did not shuttle in 2020 due to the pandemic, but his first two southern hemisphere crops produced dual Oaks Winner Pennyweka and champion two-year-old Tokyo Tycoon among his six stakes winners and studmaster John Thompson believes buyer demand for his stock will be as strong as ever, despite no two-year-olds racing this season.

“Last year, to get the champion staying filly in his first crop and the champion two-year-old in his second, not many stallions do that, so I don’t think he’ll slip under the radar at all,” Thompson said.

“He’s well and truly established and he’s right up there as a leading sire of three-year-olds in New Zealand and he’s a Group-winning three-year-old in Australia.

“The same thing could be said of Maurice and I don’t think they’re going to forget about him, either.” 

Among the Rich Hill draft is a brother to this season’s Gloaming Stakes (Gr 3, 1800m) winner Raf Attack and a sister to last season’s Australian Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) placed gelding  Japanese Emperor, two of 15 Satono Aladdins catalogued in Book 1.

Not dissimilar to this year when Thompson’s Book 2 draft had nine Proisirs, next year’s will have five lots by One Thousand Guineas winner Molly Bloom’s sire Ace High and five by the ever consistent and underrated Shocking (Street Cry), another member of the Rich Hill stallion roster. 

Ace High is the first stallion to sire a first crop New Zealand Thousand Guineas winner since O’Reilly (Last Tycoon) in 2001 when his daughter Final Destination won the race.

“The Guineas is often won by a filly who is brilliant over 1200 to 1400 metres and they just get the mile on class, whereas I think it’s been a while since we’ve had a three-year-old who has needed every bit of the mile. She was pretty impressive, wasn’t she?” Thompson said of Molly Bloom’s dominant Guineas win earlier this month.

“Look, we had really good feedback about the Ace Highs and I said to NZB, ‘Look guys, don’t make the mistake with this horse of putting them all in Book 2’, but I guess from their perspective they have got to see the results. 

“That’s just the way it goes with second–season stallions, they’ve got to be a bit cautious. Molly Bloom won, but he’s got a few other promising horses as well.”

In all there are 57 yearlings by Savabeel in Book 1, 51 by Per Incanto (Street Cry), the same number by Almanzor (Wootton Bassett), three by Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) and a single representative by I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit).

Proisir’s popularity has skyrocketed on the back of his deeds last season, which included five Group 1 winners and he has started well again this spring with three-year-old Coeur Volante winning two Group races in Melbourne for his trainer Mike Moroney.

He had 19 yearlings in Book 1 this year, but he has 35 catalogued next January, which were conceived off a NZ$12,500 (plus GST) service fee. 

Thompson said: “It’s a wee step up from $7,000, but there’s a good number in Book 1 and a lot of them are there because they’re by Proisir. 

“Having said that, he’s got his horses out of mares when he stood for $7,000, so he shows he can upgrade them.”

The NZB sale will feature first foals out of Group 1-performed mares Miss Sentimental (Reliable Man), Rondinella (Ocean Park), Bargain (Ocean Park) and Bavella (Snitzel) among yearlings with current black-type female lines and Jones indicated that the 2024 sale possessed a strong depth of stallion talent.

He added: “I don’t want to single out too many individuals at the moment, but there’s some siblings to some real stars and in particular we’ve got the best representation of Savabeel that we’ve had for a number of years, particularly fillies which I know will be well sought after.”

The Book 1 catalogue is up 38 horses year-on-year, while Book 2 has a catalogue of 442 horses, up from 435 in 2023.

“All things going well, we will be back at Ellerslie and there’s an amazing buzz about the return to Ellerslie,” Jones said. 

“Everybody that I speak to can’t wait to return and to be racing for that phenomenal pool of money on that night, which is about NZ$4.5 million across the six races, is quite incredible.

“There’ll be fireworks that night and it’ll be a good opener for the sale the next day.”

Click here to view the full catalogue.

NZB sale schedule