Newcomer Steals The Show

The Age

Friday February 1, 2008

John Holloway, Auckland

ONLY one horse sold for more than $NZ1 million at the record-shattering Karaka Premier sales - there were four last year - but the average of almost $NZ200,000 was an increase of $NZ43,000 on 2007.

Big spenders: Patinack Farm's Nathan Tinkler, the 32-year-old Queenslander who has decided to spend a good slab of his coal-mining millions setting up a racing empire, bought 24 yearlings this week for $NZ7.92 million.

Tinkler's emergence was one the New Zealand vendors won't forget in a hurry. It will be interesting to see if he continues his multimillion-dollar outlays at the Magic Millions and Inglis Classic sales.

NZ buyer David Ellis was a big force again but declared after the sales he had been "blown away" by Tinkler. Ellis came away with 22 yearlings for $NZ5.595 million and continued to add to his numbers at the Select sales on Wednesday and yesterday.

Flemington trainer Danny O'Brien bought 16, hardly surprising when one considers the success he has had with NZ-bred gallopers over the past couple of years. His outlay was $NZ3.2 million.

Stallions: A look through the leading stallions at Karaka again shows the dominance of Danehill, with the deceased sire having seven of his sons in the top 10 sellers - Redoute's Choice, Fastnet Rock, Flying Spur, Rock Of Gibraltar, Danehill Dancer, Elvstroem and Exceed And Excel had 41 lots sell between them for a return of $13,632,500.

Redoute's Choice's handsome son from Popsy was the only seven-figure yearling.

The effort by the elder statesman of Australasian breeding, Zabeel, was noteworthy: 36 of his progeny sold for more than $13.2 million.

Newcomers: Fastnet Rock stole the show among first-season sires and one wonders what his yearlings are going to sell for at the major Australian sales. At Karaka, his 11 yearlings brought an average of $385,455.

Vendors: Sir Patrick Hogan again proved himself the prince of NZ sellers at the Premier sale and was a driving force in the country returning to its halcyon selling days.

Hogan gave a guarantee to the NZ Bloodstock team that he would bypass the Australian sales, with his yearlings available exclusively at Karaka, and he received a $NZ14.88 million return for the 47 yearlings he sold over the two days. Tinkler bought 10 of them.

$NZ1 is equal to about 88 cents Australian.

© 2008 The Age

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