CTS confident after sales
WEHANN Smith, CEO of the Cape Thoroughbred Sales (CTS), believes the mix of international buyers and the strength of the middle market helped keep the 2018 Cape Premier Sale buoyant. The sale was held last weekend.
“We are extremely happy under the circumstances,” he commented yesterday.
“It was pleasing that we reached a decent average, the strength of the international buyers was positive and the gap between the median and the average was encouraging, indicating the strength in the middle market.”
This year 254 horses were catalogued and 221 were sold for an aggregate of R111,475,000. The average price was R504,411 with the median at R300,000. Last year lots were sold for an aggregate of R155,225,000 at an average of R699,211 and a median of R387,500 a drop of 27.86%.
“One has to consider that not only did we lose our largest buyer this year but we also have to compete with the current dispersal sale of Mayfair Speculators. Most buyers have a budget and that would have put some of our regular out of this year’s sale. Hopefully that is just temporary and they will all be back next year.
“I’m looking forward to next year. The 2019 sale will be booming!” said Smith.
Among the new buyers was the Hong Kong Jockey Club, who purchased four horses at a total of R6.1 million. They spent R2.5 million on a son of Dynasty out of Happy Archer, who was trained by Sean Tarry and also bought Happy Hour, a colt by Silvano, for R1.1 million, I Am The Secret (Captain Al-Secret Of Victoria) for R1.8 million and Baltic Mission (Captain AlBaltic Beauty) for R700,000.
“This was the first purchase by the Hong Kong Jockey Club but as long as we deliver the horses to them as agreed, they have every intention of making it a regular feature,” said Smith.
Top price was paid by John Freeman for an unnamed son of UK superstar Frankel (Lot 94). The colt went for R4 million but the good news is the horses is expected to stay in South Africa because he was bought on behalf of Jack Mitchell, who has been involved with such top horses as Jackson, Legislate and Futura in the past.
There were two Frankel fillies on the sale. One went for R1.5 million on Saturday while the other attracted a lot more attention, fetching R3 million.
There was good support for progeny of Silvano, Dynasty and Captain Al, who died last year.
Freeman bought 11 lots for a total of R14.1 million, also including Lot 201 for R2.5 million. This colt is by Trippi and is the first son of brilliant mare Beach Beauty.
Former Singapore-based trainer Pat Shaw was the second biggest buyer, spending R6,525,000 on five lots for local and international buyers.
Smith believes the tone of the sale was set by a speech delivered by CTS chairman Chris van Niekerk at last Friday night’s dinner in which he tackled the Markus Jooste issue head on.
He said: “There is a lot of emotion around. You can choose sadness, it’s your right to be sad about the whole damn thing. You can choose anger, it’s your prerogative to be angry. You can be happy, there are people who are happy about what happened.
“I’m not here to sing anybody’s praises or to cast any judgment. I’m in the sad corner. I’d rather remember the value added over the years to the industry and to people’s lives.
“What has been created here is an iconic sale, it’s become a part of the world calendar.
There will be another bigger buyer of racehorses. There will be another, a new champion owner of the year. And let me remind you, even though Elvis left the building, the music never stops!”