‘He’s an absolute weapon of an animal’
Ormsby’s Churchill colt takes starring role as the curtain comes down on another record-breaking NZB Ready To Run Sale
Riverrock Farm’s Chad Ormsby was celebrating an extraordinary result on Thursday when he pocketed a significant return on an initial $25,000 investment he made on a colt by Churchill (Galileo), selling the same youngster to Hong Kong-based buyers Patella Bloodstock for a session-topping NZ$775,000 on the final day of New Zealand Bloodstock’s (NZB) Ready To Run Sale.
The multifaceted horseman picked up the colt by Coolmore’s Group 1-producing shuttler, who has already been named Ukinno, from the Twin Hills Stud draft at the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale earlier in the year and Ormsby said he couldn’t believe his luck when the hammer fell in his favour in Melbourne all those months ago.
There’s so many stages where things can go wrong in this business, but all the way through his preparation, he’s just kept on developing. He’s really become the horse we always thought he’d be
“We honestly couldn’t believe we were getting such a high-quality colt for that price in Melbourne earlier in the year,” he said. “We rated him so highly from the moment we first saw him, and he’s turned out exactly how we hoped he would. There’s so many stages where things can go wrong in this business, but all the way through his preparation, he’s just kept on developing. He’s really become the horse we always thought he’d be.”
The colt won a trial at Waipa on October 1, after which Ormsby took a big risk and turned down a significant offer to purchase him privately. However, that decision to offer the colt himself at the sale was vindicated when he subsequently impressed in his breeze-up at Te Rapa later last month, where he clocked 10.42 seconds.
“He trialled really well before the breeze-ups, and we knew after that performance that we had a pretty special individual,” Ormsby said. “We turned down good money after that trial. It was a lot of money and not easy to say no to, especially for a small operation like ours with only about ten horses every year.
“But we wanted to promote ourselves and our brand, and we thought the best way to do that was to take the risk, turn down that offer and carry on into the sale. This Ready to Run Sale is our home ground too, it’s our local sale and we believe it’s the best sale of its kind, so we wanted to support the sale as well.”
Ormsby said he had hoped to cash somewhere around the $500,000 mark for the colt, but was blown away when a figure sufficiently north of that price flashed up in the ring.
“It’s an amazing result and it’s just a credit to the horse, he’s an absolute weapon of an animal,” he said.
Catalogued as Lot 288, the colt is out of the unraced Pierro (Lonhro) mare Bagitol, herself a daughter of Listed winner Caliente (Sequalo).
The Churchill colt finished the sale as the second-top lot, bettered only by the NZ$1.65 million Te Akau’s David Ellis paid for the I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) colt out of dual Group 1 winner Shillelagh (Savabeel) on Wednesday.