By Matt Markham
He’s changing the goalposts, ever so slightly, but don’t expect too much to change for Cran Dalgety going forward.
The West Melton horseman, who has so long been regarded as a man who chases wins and stake money in the bank is looking at life from a different perspective theses days while still very much conscious of the need to produce the results.
Dalgety said that one of his more primary focuses now was looking at the bottom line of the balance sheet and that’s forced him to look at the way he operates his business.
“You need things to be balancing up correctly and they haven’t been,” he said last week.
“So while we will still be out there each week chasing the winners, you’ll probably see us selling a few more horses too from now on.”
Traditionally a stable that hasn’t sold a lot of stock, Dalgety has preferred to keep horses in his care for as long as he possibly can to filter out as many victories as possible, but there are always exceptions to the rule.
A glance at New Zealand horses in action in America on any given week would results in the discovery of a number of former Dalgety pacers – all of whom are doing a grand job in the States. And the sale of top-flight horses such as Bit Of A Legend and Christen Me in the past few seasons has opened a door that he’s quite keen to explore even further moving forward.
“Everything has a shelf life and it’s about being a bit more aware of what you need to do to keep the business ticking over.
“You can’t be spending a whole heap of money and then not getting it back.
“So it guess it is more about me being conscious of that than it is anything else really.”
With 59 wins on the board for the term, Dalgety should reach and surpass his final tally of 61 from last season and considers that to be a passable effort in the grand scheme of things.
“They aren’t huge numbers, but they are satisfactory.”
He cited the Northern Derby victory and the emergence of Rakapuka Ruler as a real highlight.
“Watching him develop and win a race like the Northern Derby was really a high point for me this season for sure.”
He’s unleashed three promising types in the past fortnight as well, all of whom were victorious on debut; Master Moonlite, Some Legend and Mistahmistah.
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