Kneebone to undertake quarantine in time to pick up the gavel at Karaka
Agents forced to choose Australia or New Zealand sales without travel bubble in place
Mike Kneebone missed his first New Zealand Bloodstock Ready to Run Sale for more than two decades but he is preparing to undertake two weeks of hotel quarantine to ensure that he is behind the rostrum at Karaka in January for the National Yearling Sale.
The Sydney-based NZB director of business development will fly into New Zealand in early January, soon after his auctioneering peer Steve Davis will have arrived in Australia to undertake a three-month stint for rival sales company Magic Millions.
New Zealand agents Dean Hawthorne, Bevan Smith and China Horse Club’s Michael Smith are also set to cross the Tasman for the 2021 Australian sales series, leaving them to participate at Karaka from afar. Guy Mulcaster has already made the trip over.
Under current travel restrictions, New Zealanders are allowed to fly into NSW without quarantining, but they cannot return without completing two weeks of isolation in a specified hotel, ruling out the possibility of being able to attend both the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale and Karaka, which starts on January 24.
Kneebone remained in Australia for last month’s Ready to Run Sale but he was intent on attending NZB’s flagship sale next month.
“For me, I really have to be back for the National sale. I am going in on the 3rd of January and come out of quarantine on the 17th,” Kneebone said yesterday.
“It gives me plenty of time to see all the horses. I’ve obviously got orders and a number of people are wanting me to look at horses for them as well, so I’ll be there for the Karaka Million and be at the sale.
“I think it was 23 years since I’d missed the Ready to Run Sale, which is pretty amazing, and I wasn’t looking forward to missing the National sale. You feel like you’re letting people down a bit.”
The fact the Australian buying bench will not be able to attend Karaka and that the New Zealand agents will be split between the two countries means those stakeholders on the ground at Karaka will be relied upon to provide appraisals of the yearlings on offer.
Kneebone said: “Agents like Bruce Perry and Phill Cataldo, the Tankards and those sort of people, they are going to have a lot more work to do leading into the sales, but the beauty of the system now is that they can use their agents and still bid online and use their services leading up to the sale.
“It’s a good time for them to create some more business, I reckon.”
Perry confirmed yesterday that he had elected not to join Smith, leading trainer Chris Waller’s agent Mulcaster and GSA Bloodstock adviser Hawthorne on the plane to Australia to attend the Magic Millions and Inglis sales early in the New Year.
“Karaka has always been a great source of good horses for us and our clients, so I really wanted to be there and that made it impossible to get back to Magic Millions,” Perry said.
“So, I have decided to stay here for the sale and support the clients who are selling horses in New Zealand.”
While NZB’s Ready to Run Sale exceeded many people’s expectations, a reasoned Perry warned that the mechanics of the yearling market were different.
“We were optimistic after that (Ready to Run Sale) but whether that crosses over to the yearling sale, it will be interesting to see,” said Perry, who has recently brought his daughter Becca on board as an assistant.
“They are slightly different horses in that buyers don’t get the same opportunities to watch them on video and things, compared to seeing them breezing up.
“There’s the knowledge of the families and things like that which people rely on, so hopefully there’s plenty of interest and I am sure there will be.”
The New Zealand agents who will be participating in the Karaka sale via the online portal have been busy inspecting yearlings in recent weeks and Perry has also started his on-farm homework.
“Given a number have gone to Australia there might be a bit of tail, but quality-wise there’s some really nice horses, there’s definitely some nice colts and nice fillies which I have seen so far,” he said.
Kneebone, whose colleagues have been canvassing the all-important overseas buying bench, admitted to feeling a sense of disappointment about the number of New Zealand-bred horses who will be offered at the Australian sales next year, but he also acknowledged that vendors were making a “commercial decision”.
“I think the value in New Zealand will be the best it’s ever been and the depth of the catalogue is great,” he said.
“We’ve got so many stallions with the likes of Ocean Park, who is doing a really good job for us, and then we have the young horses like Almanzor, Belardo, Time Test, there’s a heap of those young sires coming up.
“I know New Zealanders have sent horses to Australia, but we’ve actually got some really nice horses who have come to New Zealand from Australia, so it’s swings and roundabouts a bit.”
Meanwhile, Kneebone is bracing himself for two weeks surrounded by four walls and nothing but his own thoughts while in quarantine.
“Put it this way, we’re not being put up at the Sheraton, and you don’t really know where you’re going to be put when you arrive,” he said.
“There’s three main centres: Rotorua, Christchurch and Auckland. Obviously, I will be pushing to get into Auckland and they know that is my final port of call, if you like, so the odds are that I will be in Auckland. As to where and how it all works, I don’t really know.”