NZ HARNESS NEWS
There is a distinct air of optimism heading into New Zealand Bloodstock’s inaugural National Yearling Sales starting this weekend in Auckland.
All the pointers are heading in the right direction with new standardbred sales manager Peter Lagan saying the biggest change has been around the financing side of things.
“That has really taken off and while it’s not that surprising, I have been really blown away by the amount of interest in the financing of (buying) fillies,” said Lagan.
The latter involves the buyer coming up with a 25% deposit on the purchase of a yearling filly and then paying off the rest over a three year period, by which time said filly may have even produced a foal.
Outside of a handful of fillies at the top end of the market, the fillies have always struggled at the yearling sales and this will be encouraging news for breeders ‘saddled’ with them.
Then there is the financing of pinhooking, either from the yearling sales to the Ready to Run 2yo Sale or weanlings at the Mixed Sale in the autumn to next season’s yearling sales.
“We’ve had a lot of interest from trainers and particularly the younger brigade looking to invest in more stock so that should help the middle market, I guess.
“I’d have to say the turnout for the Bus Tours has also noticeably increased.
“Normally we’d have half a dozen trainers from Canterbury going up for the North Island tour but this year there was 13, while there were 25 who flew down for the Southland one this week.”
“A lot more buyers than usual have pre-registered and we expect the Australian participation to be as good as, if not better than normal.
“We were at the Melbourne APG Sale recently where I thought the middle market was very strong.
“There was a lot of interest there in the New Zealand sales and I’d have to say that NZB has done an excellent job of promoting the sales, particularly through social media.”
There are the usual offerings of yearlings by the established sires this year, but there will also be much interest in first crop sires such as Captaintreacherous and Father Patrick and Lagan says he has been very impressed by what he has seen.
“The Captaintreacherous yearlings have a bit of size about them and are very athletic types, so it’s not hard to see why they’ve gone so well in America (leading sire of two-year-olds over Sweet Lou last year).
“The Father Patricks are also very nice horses and good types, with size and a bit of length about them, which is what you want to see in a trotter.”
Lagan also expects the second crop of yearlings by Sweet Lou to sell very strongly after his first crop also raced very well in America last year and the early indicators here.
“In my job I’m normally the first one to hear bad things about sires, but I have not heard one bad comment about Sweet Lou yet.”
The sales kick off at Karaka on Sunday with a parade, the first of 137 lots to go under the hammer on Monday at 11am.
It then moves to Christchurch for two days of selling, 48 trotters going through the ring from 4pm after a parade starting at 11am.
The next day, Wednesday, the sale rounds out with 188 pacing lots, again starting at 11am.
- The Informant
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
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