Catalog Out for Southern Hemisphere’s Biggest 2YO Sale

The catalog for the 2021 New Zealand Bloodstock Ready to Run Sale has be released Sept. 6 as the company comes to terms with the fact that Australasia's biggest 2-year-old auction will again be unlikely to have international buyers in attendance.

NZB bloodstock sales manager Danny Rolston does not see the probable travel restrictions as being the big impediment that it once would have been to the auction's success due to the buying bench's experience over the past 18 months in adapting to the obstacles and increasing vendor transparency.

Rolston revealed he had already fielded interest from international buyers about the Ready to Run Sale in a promising sign of a strong Australasian yearling market in 2022 continuing through to the breeze-up auctions.

"We have seen a lot of the horses either at the yearling sales or out and about at the track already. Every year this sale has quality lots in it and it's no different this year," said Rolston.

"We have fielded pretty good interest from, particularly Australia at this early stage, which is giving us a little bit of an indication that maybe a few of the stables missed out in a fairly heated yearling market this year," Rolston said.

This year's NZB Ready to Run Sale, to be held at Karaka Nov. 17-18 and the third of the three Australasian juvenile auctions, promises a catalog of 322 2-year-olds by 83 different stallions including horses by champion stallions Savabeel , Tavistock , Per Incanto , and Ocean Park, as well as juveniles by Australian sires Exceed And Excel , Not A Single Doubt , Pierro, and Sebring .

First crop 2-year-olds by shuttlers Almanzor , Satono Aladdin , and Time Test  have also been cataloged while juveniles by Frankel  and American Pharoah   will also feature.

New Zealand-breds won every Derby in Australia last season, highlighted by Explosive Jack who won three of them, while the Ready to Run Sale will feature a half brother to Moet & Chandon Queensland Derby (G1) winner Kukeracha by Waikato Stud's late sire Sacred Falls. The colt (Lot 246) is out of the A.P. Indy mare Portrait of a Lady.

"It has been a really good year for New Zealand-bred horses, particularly in the Derbies which has been amazing. It is really the young stallions coming onto the map at the moment—Sacred Falls, Ocean Park, and now Tivaci coming up behind him which will just keep that Waikato Stud powerhouse rolling on," Rolston said.

"Tivaci has had a pretty amazing start to the season (with his first-crop 3-year-olds). They have all come in pretty quick succession and in Australia, which is vital for a young stallion," said Rolston.

NZB will again reach out to the tight cohort of New Zealand agents in order to service its domestic and international buyers as well as once again calling on its online bidding platform, an innovation that has become a staple for Thoroughbred markets worldwide.

"We are pretty much in an identical position to what we were 12 months ago (with no travel) and I guess at least we know all our technology is robust, our customer base has been through a full sales cycle with the remote buying, and it seems to have worked out well and held up remarkably," Rolston continued.

Rolston said, "All those remote buyers who didn't have someone on the ground this time last year certainly do now, so the local agents are a vital key to the success of our sales in New Zealand in this current environment."

Oct. 11-12 have been set aside for the breeze-ups to take place at Te Rapa. As it did last year, NZB will provide extra footage of the horses prior to and after their breezes to enable buyers to gain as much information as possible digitally.

The Inglis Ready2Race Sale begins the Australasian 2-year-old series with an Oct. 12 auction at Riverside Stables in Sydney followed by the Magic Millions offering Nov. 8-9.

Magic Millions is yet to release its catalog.