Karaka Million’s 10 years
The 91st National Yearling Sales Series will begin as it does every year, with a bang, followed by the thunder of thoroughbreds all racing to win the Karaka Million.
Among the favourites fillies is the unbeaten Gift of Power from Cambridge stud who narrowly beat Hasahalo in December, and Brisbane colt Ameridon, trained by Liam Birchley.
Last year’s series sold 979 horses and totalled over $88 million dollars. New Zealand Bloodstock CEO Andrew Seabrook said this was the second best sale ever on record, he’s hoping this year for sales to break $90 million.
‘‘This is our flagship event, this is why we exist and really why the industry exists,’’ said Seabrook.
He is optimistic sales will be high this year after looking at how many hotels have been booked out.
Australian buyers were the biggest international buyers at last year’s sales, spending over $31 million. They were followed by Hong Kong buyers who spent $8.9 million, and Singapore buyers, who spent over $4.7 million.
The most expensive horse sold last year was a Frankel colt purchased for $1.3 million. This year another Frankel yearling, Give Me Five is being sold by Curraghmore and expected to be a star of the show.
This year Waikato Stud stallion Savabeel is again the leading sire in terms of domestic and worldwide earnings, and will be represented by a crop of 64 yearlings in this year’s Premier sale. Last year Savabeel sired three of the four top-priced colts.
It is also the final yearling crop of Waikato Stud’s O’Reilly, a multiple Group 1 winner on the racetrack who’s progeny have earned over $128 million worldwide.
New Zealand thoroughbreds are increasingly well regarded overseas following a string of New Zealand thoroughbred wins in Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia.
Last season in Australia, New Zealand thoroughbreds won 25% of the Group 1 races, yet they make up only 5.4% of the racehorse population.
Karaka graduates have won 4 of the last 7 Group 1 Hong Kong Miles, which used to be the world’s richest mile.
It’s the tenth year the sale has opened with the Karaka Million twilight races, though this year there will be an audience representing the newly formed New Zealand Chinese Jockey Club.
The Karaka Million coincides with the launch of the NZCJC, which fittingly also happens to be the first day of Chinese New Year.
NZCJC CEO Alan Fu said he sees the racecourse as the ‘‘perfect environment for business elites’’.
He said the connections from the jockey club can come to New Zealand for investment into the thoroughbred racing and breeding industry.
‘‘With horses and through horses, there are business connections that could be made...people joining the club are from all kinds of industry and it creates more of a comfortable environment for those people to talk to each other, because they feel like they’re talking to a peer in the same class.’’
The jockey club has several influential ’’honorary presidents’’ in the racing industry including prominent Chinese businessman Lang Lin, who has imported over 1,000 horses from New Zealand to China in the past 4 years, Andrew Seabrook, and a senior member of the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
NZCJC Director Joshua Zong said the rise in popularity of horseracing in Chinese culture has stemmed from a rise in expendable income in the Chinese middle and upper class, which has grown to over 300 million people in China.
Andrew Seabrook said were gambling legalised in China, New Zealand’s annual foal crop of 4,000 would not be enough to meet demand.