The domestic buying bench may be dwarfed by the returning international investors at the New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka Yearling Sale when it gets underway Jan. 29 but shrewd Kiwi traders are turning to fillies to cash in on unprecedented interest for young stock from Australia.
Aside from Te Akau principal David Ellis, the leading buyer at Karaka for 17 straight years, Australia is New Zealand’s biggest export market and once again buyers from across the Tasman will play a key role in the success of the six-day Book 1 and Book 2 sale.
New Zealand-based trainers and traders, who rely heavily on booming overseas markets to make a living, are increasingly speculating on yearling fillies at Karaka to educate with the aim of on-selling them for a healthy profit as either barrier trial winners or lightly raced horses.
Renowned Kiwi agent Phill Cataldo, who has sourced numerous high-class tried horses from New Zealand on behalf of Australian clients including dual group 1-winning mare Sierra Sue, believes there’s “a huge market for fillies in Australia” and he expects local trainers to try and exploit that demand at the 2023 NZB sale.
“The broodmare market is booming there and when you look through pedigrees at the Australian sales quite often you’ll see, as far back as the fourth and fifth dam, fillies and mares who did race here generations ago and now their daughters, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters are breeding on,” Cataldo said.
“I see more demand for our fillies, both as yearlings and off the track, that’s for sure.”
Brighthill Farm’s Nick King said it was evident that there had been “a big change” to the domestic buying bench which had become more accepting of fillies and mares as trading prospects.
“We’ve seen a lot of New Zealand trainers who have had nice success training young staying fillies (and selling them to) Australia,” King told ANZ Bloodstock News from Karaka yesterday.
“It’s a core part of their market now and they’ve gone on to target these fillies to purchase them and replace them at our (Karaka) yearling sale.
“It’s long overdue and it’s been well received by everybody to see fillies getting their opportunity, particularly the nice staying ones.”
While colts understandably have extra appeal given the export markets of Hong Kong and, to a lesser extent, Singapore as well as Australia, King suggested the margin in fillies provided value to buyers wanting to on-sell them once they’ve been educated.
“They can source them well and it doesn’t take them that long to get them ‘up’. They can win a trial or a nice 3-year-old maiden race somewhere and they become very valuable commodities,” said the breeder whose stud farm is near Cambridge.
“There’s a waiting process for a stayer, but if you’re doing it from a racing yard, you cut out a lot of the waiting time.
“They win from that perspective and we win because it brings that nice staying filly back into vogue, which is what we breed so well here.”
Three of Brighthill’s seven Book 1 yearlings are fillies, by Tarzino, Almanzor, and Eminent, while King will also offer six fillies in Book 2.
“The on-farm parades we’ve had leading up to the sale over the past few months, it’s been terrific to see the interest in those athletic, staying-type fillies,” he said.
“All of a sudden, there’s been a lot of interest because that was a hard area of our market for a number of years.”
Cataldo agreed that the demand for barrier-trialed or lightly raced New Zealand fillies from Australian interests had escalated in the past few years.
“My core business is really trial horses and racehorses and I’ve got a lot of demand for fillies who look like they’re above average. Pedigree comes into it a little bit obviously and then that is price reflective,” the Cambridge-based Cataldo said.
“If they’ve got a shallow pedigree they’re cheaper than if they’ve got a K1 (Karaka Book 1) pedigree, for instance.
“The demand is there, particularly from Victoria where they really cater for these fillies and mares and if they’re buying out of New Zealand, they want them to be able to run over middle and longer distances.
“It’s no good sending over sprinters to Australia, where the best sprinters are produced, without doubt, so I stay away from sprinting fillies and look for more middle-distance fillies.”
Cambridge-based trainer Tony Pike shared the sentiments of King and Cataldo about the value of the fillies in the Karaka catalog and said that he and the majority of his peers on-sold horses to internationals as part of their business model.
“Our prize-money here is nowhere near as strong as it is in Australia and it’s just one of those things: from a business point of view, most people do trade the odd horse here or there either to Hong Kong or Australia,” Pike said.
“Any filly who looks like she’s going to get over a trip, a nice middle-distance or staying filly, is very marketable to Australia if she shows good form at the races and there’s a really strong market over there for them.”
The NZB Karaka National Yearling Sale starts at 11 a.m. local time on Sunday.
