Upwards of 100 people enjoyed a typically balmy Wairarapa day to attend last Sundays public parade of our Karaka bound Premier and Select Sale yearlings. The National Yearling Sale Series incorporating these two sales commences at Karaka on 28 January.
Sam has noticed more interest from New Zealand trainers and owners in this years draft compared to recent years and puts it down to a buoyant racing industry, riding high on the back of increased stakemoney and record prices at Novembers Ready to Run Sale. Staff were rushed off their feet after Sunday's parade pulling horses out for further inspection which is encouraging.
Last years National Yearling Sale saw LA reach new heights with record prices and averages. Third leading vendor by average at the Premier Sale, the top priced filly in the Premier Sale at $700,000 for the Redoutes Choice- Foxtrot filly (now racing as Pachanga and stakesplaced at only start to date) and leading vendor at the Select Sale by average including the record establishing No Excuse Needed-Cymbidium colt at $230,000 capped a wonderful week for the stud.
We are very happy with the even lineup of 13 yearlings we are taking north. Included amongst the youngsters is a half brother to leading NZ three-year-old Rios and progeny by leading sires Towkay, Pins and Volksraad as well as new season sires Savabeel, Shamardal, One Cool Cat and Johar.
The weekend's race results were kind to our lot 39 in the Premier Sale. She's a lovely classic type of filly by No Excuse Needed from Chatto Creek. Chatto Creek is a half sister to the LA bred O'Reilly Rally who recorded his third win in Hong Kong on Saturday evening from just seven starts. This is the family of NZ Broodmare of the Year River Century.
Saturday at Ellerslie saw Sabayon (Pins - Cajun Affair) win over 1400m. She's a mare we bred and sold as a yearling at Karaka.
On Sunday in Malaysia, Ego's Malang (Towkay-Hyapatia Lee) a gelding we bred in conjunction with F Cornege scored over 1400m.
We could not go without mentioning Delbrae's typically courageous performance in winning Saturdays Listed Marton Cup, the feature race in NZ last weekend. .It was kind of fitting that he joined with two wonderful examples of the thoroughbred's courage and versatility in Omnitrader and Sir Slick to make a trifecta of wins on the day taking his tally to 11 wins. Our purchase of an in foal We Leica - the dam of Delbrae - in April last year has become more significant each month since with Delbrae running big races seemingly the length and breadth of the country on all sorts of track conditions. We Leica's resulting filly foal by Redoutes Choice stallion Bradbury's Luck is quite a valuable little girl now. It's not hard to imagine her value escalating further as Delbrae continues on his winning way.
Two weeks to Karaka and we look forward to seeing you in barn F for some good old LA hospitality. Oh and good luck to the connections of Kay's Awake (Towkay-Wake Up Suzie) in this Saturdays Group One Telegraph Handicap.
