Buyer feedback leads to Karaka sale sticking to January dates for 2021
New Zealand Bloodstock shelves plan to push auction back to April in travel bubble hope
The chief executive of one of the country’s biggest thoroughbred breeders, the famed Cambridge Stud, has welcomed New Zealand Bloodstock’s decision to keep its Karaka Yearling Sale in its traditional January date despite market uncertainty concerning Covid-19.
The experienced Henry Plumptre was one of many prominent New Zealand breeders who met with the sales company hierarchy at Te Rapa yesterday where NZB managing director Andrew Seabrook outlined reasoning to keep the status quo.
ANZ Bloodstock News had previously revealed plans to hold New Zealand’s National Yearling Sale in April – after the majority of the Australian auctions had taken place – in the hope that a trans-Tasman travel bubble would be in place to allow its major international buyers to attend.
However, with the lockdown of Victoria and the shock reemergence of the coronavirus in Auckland earlier this month, that seems less likely to occur and NZB has instead taken onboard feedback from Australasian buyers who recommended maintaining its January slot and Karaka Million race day.
NZB has confirmed it will hold a three-day Book 1 sale from January 24 to 26 before Book 2 follows on January 27 to 29.
The NZ$1 million Karaka Million 2YO (RL, 1200m) and the NZ$1 million three-year-old race will both be run at Ellerslie’s twilight meeting on January 23.
NZB had sought the opinions from a significant number of domestic and international industry stakeholders before reaching the decision to not delay the sale.
“Our main focus over the last couple of months has been discussing, analysing and liaising with our buyers and vendors in an effort to ascertain the optimum time to sell next year. It is an incredibly important decision and one that we need to get right,” Seabrook said.
“We canvassed a range of our leading purchasers in all of the major jurisdictions with surprising, but encouraging findings.
“The resounding response was they believe the traditional week in January is the best time for our sale, despite travel restrictions.”
Plumptre said the information provided by NZB at the breeder meeting was compelling.
“I don’t think it was so much a question of the vendors making the decision, our client base in Australia had a lot to do with it,” Plumptre told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“To be fair to NZB, they gave us a pretty comprehensive update on their research this morning at Te Rapa. Although they flirted with the idea of an April sale after The Championships (in Sydney), I think the initial thought two or three months ago that that was probably a better option.
“But certainly the feedback they’d got from the people who matter to the New Zealand market in Australia, Hong Kong and elsewhere was ‘don’t play around with your sale date’.
“Changing sale dates, for whatever the reason, has never worked. I’ve never seen it work and I’ve been looking at sales for 35 years. It doesn’t resonate with the buyers particularly because they set their calendars and they set their diaries by the dates of the major sales in our part of the world.”
NZB will embrace digital technology in order to make it as easy as possible for overseas buyers to assess the yearlings, while also offering an online bidding platform, technology which was recently announced by the company.
Plumptre said the reliance on New Zealand-based bloodstock agents would be pivotal to the success or otherwise of the 2021 Karaka sale but he was confident a positive outcome can be achieved.
“We have Dean Hawthorne, Brucy Perry, Guy Mulcaster, the Tankard boys (Bryce and Ginger), there’s a stack of them,” he said.
“Everyone’s got a Hong Kong client and everyone’s got an Australian client and the Australian trainers who buy regularly out of New Zealand use a whole raft of people.
“There’s people like Chris Rutten … who are highly qualified horse people and it’s not impossible to see that they can get around the yearlings and then start telling the people from Australia and Asia what these horses look like.
“It’s not ideal, but everyone is in the same boat.”
NZB management was told by breeders yesterday that they want a live auction to be held at the company’s Karaka complex with yearlings being paraded in the ring while also utilising the online and phone bidding to sell horses.
Cambridge Stud is expected to consign up to 60 yearlings at next year’s sale, while New Zealand’s leading vendor in recent years, Waikato Stud, could have as many as 75 lots.
“There is a sense of relief that (NZB is) staying where they are, but there’s obviously matters of concern and one of the biggest for vendors is that 40 per cent of our labour force, both here and in Australia, is overseas labour and you can’t get those people here now.
“We’re going to have to rely heavily on the domestic worker base here. How does that look? I don’t really know, and it’s going to be more difficult for some people than others. The degree of difficulty goes up with the increasing (yearling) numbers, but I can see it working.
“I am already thinking about how we can pull staff in from our farms, the one at Karaka and one in Cambridge, and I think we could put a workforce together that can produce 55 yearlings.”
Yearling inspections are currently underway in New Zealand with NZB bloodstock sales manager Danny Rolston confident the quality of the horses on offer will be second to none.
“We are really impressed by what we’ve seen so far,” Rolston said.
“A crop off the back of a great 2018 sale means we have a strong line-up of stallions represented and we are excited to launch the catalogue to buyers come November.”
2021 Australiasian yearling sale dates
Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale – January 13 to 19
New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka Book 1 – January 24 to 26
New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka Book 2 – January 27 to 29
Inglis Classic Yearling Sale Riverside Stables – February 7 to 9
Magic Millions Perth Yearling Sale – February 15 and 16
Magic Millions Tasmanian Yearling Sale – February 22
Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale – February 28 and March 1 and 2
Magic Millions Adelaide Yearling Sale – March 9 and 10
Magic Millions Gold Coast March Yearling Sale – March 15 and 16
Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale – April 6 and 7
Inglis Melbourne Gold Yearling Sale – May 16