Mackrell keen to meet mares’ market on the Gold Coast
Australian mare trader Adam Mackrell, like everyone else in the racing and breeding industry, is glad that the sport has continued on the racecourse during the Covid-19 crisis and is hoping that the impact of the pandemic does not force him to drastically alter his business model.
The Bell View Park Stud principal, who is located at Berry on the NSW south coast, changed the direction of the business about three years ago by no longer foaling down mares and instead becoming a trader of stock off the track or in foal.
At last year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast National Broodmare Sale Mackrell sold all 21 mares in the Bell View draft including the stakes-placed Written Era (Written Tycoon) for $775,000.
But this year’s dramatically altered market, as a result of coronavirus, which saw a virtual Chairman’s Sale for elite mares conducted by Inglis last month and delay of the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale until late July, has caused some anxious moments for Mackrell.
It led to the offering of mares on the Inglis Digital platform, including the selling of a half-sister to Viddora (I Am Invincible), Star Flight (Hard Spun) for $75,000 in this week’s catalogue.
“Our business model is to sell them, so we are still attempting to do that,” Mackrell said yesterday.
“But it is a bit tricky at the moment with the way things have panned out with coronavirus. From a mare trading point of things, it probably couldn’t have come at a worse time.
“At the end of the day, people are still looking for mares and we will do our best to meet the market.”
Bell View Park, through Glenesk Thoroughbreds, sold six mares to a top of $300,000 at the 2020 Chairman’s Sale and Mackrell expects to offer 12 mares at the Gold Coast next month.
“At this stage, I’d say there will be around a dozen all up. I’m looking forward to it,” he said.
“We put a lot of time and effort into trying to find the right mares, so it’s been frustrating when you know you’ve got a nice product but it’s been hard to get people to see them.
“At least it’s a live auction and hopefully people will appreciate being able to inspect them.”
Among the mares heading north for Mackrell are Molten Rock (High Chaparral), in foal to Fastnet Rock (Danehill), who is closely related to the Twin Hills Stud-based stallion Smart Missile (Fastnet Rock) and Blue Morpho (Hussonet), who is in foal to the now pensioned Not A Single Doubt (Redoute’s Choice).
“Hussonet’s had a great weekend as a broodmare sire as he had Tyzone and Rothfire in the two-year-old Group 1 race in Queensland and Blue Morpho is in foal to Not A Single Doubt which is the same cross as Extreme Choice, so she is a nice mare,” he said.
“We’ve also got a really nice Northern Meteor mare named Elusive Meteor and she’s in foal to Exceed And Excel who is one of the nicer ones and we’ve got a Group-placed Bernadini mare called Aperitif and she is in foal to American Pharoah. He is a stallion kicking some goals (in the northern hemisphere) at the moment.”
Some mares that would have made their way to the Gold Coast if the nation had not gone into lockdown due to the coronavirus and the original late May sale had gone ahead, have been sold elsewhere by Mackrell because of the risk in transporting mares with early service dates to Queensland.
Some other vendors will sell mares in absentia to negate the travel issue next month.
“It’s not ideal to not have mares at the complex but at the end of the day, the industry’s doing its best to work in with government regulations and demands to ensure that it all goes as well as possible,” he said.
“We sold quite a few of our early covered mares already, so that takes the pressure off a little bit in that respect, but we’ve just got to work with Magic Millions and the government and try and create as much interest as possible and what will be will be I guess.”
The “online revolution” has also ramped up significantly due to ensuing restrictions, but Mackrell says there is no doubt that the market’s appetite for mares had weakened off the peaks experienced in recent times.
“I think generally the market is a lot softer but the last few years the market has been really strong and it’s been more of a sellers’ market but now things have taken a step back and it’s definitely turned and it’s more of a buyers’ market,” he said.
“Like any time with the way the industry’s going, it’s getting more top-heavy and pointed at the top end, but if you have got a nice product and you’ve got some of the bigger players interested, you will always sell fairly well.”
Mackrell expects a cautious buying bench at the upcoming July sales, which includes the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale Round 2 and weanling sales in Sydney and Melbourne, and it is an approach he also intends to take when considering whether to purchase trade mares for the 2021 Bell View Park Stud drafts.
He said: “I am more in selling mode at the moment and we will just see how that all pans out before next year. That is something that I am just a little bit cautious of because of the fact that it is hard to gauge how the market is going to play over the next 12 months.
“We will see how the sales go and I think everyone’s going to be that little bit more cautious.”
Meanwhile, Raffles Racing has also elected to avoid the market uncertainty expected next year by selling off stock recently.
The international operation, which operates a farm in New Zealand and races a number of horses on both sides of the Tasman, used the recent Magic Millions Online Sale to sell horses.
Raffles Racing manager Kyan Yap said: “We are just taking a more prudent approach due to the current unprecedented climate. As such, we made the decision to cut costs and sell foals as weanlings now rather than yearlings later as there is just too much uncertainty in the market.
“I believe a lot of the other vendors are also taking this approach, too, as we all just don’t know how things will be like going forward.
“We are just simply reacting and adjusting to what’s happening, and positioning ourselves better to tackle the future challenges and take advantage of opportunities that may present themselves later.”