First-season foals made for Australia at buoyant NZB weanling market

Australia will be the immediate home for colts by Chaldean and Paddington who were sold for $250,000 and $190,000, the two highest-priced lots of this year’s New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka Weanling Sale.   

The two weanlings by Cambridge Stud and Windsor Park’s first-season shuttle sires stood out in a competitive Karaka market, with expatriate Kiwi, Bhima Thoroughbreds’ Mike Fleming, taking home the Chaldean colt with a view to pinhooking him at next year’s yearling sales.

“I bought a couple here a few years ago and I’m always happy to come over for the right horse that’s forward and well-moving,” Scone-based Fleming said.

“This colt’s a lovely horse. I came in yesterday, and with the rain, I didn’t get out, so I waited until this morning. He was right at the top of my list.

“A few other people have come in with us on him, and we’ll get him back to New South Wales and see where he heads over there next year.”

The colt out of Novashow, a Group 2-performed Showcasing mare, was the highest price paid at NZB’s weanling sale since 2022, when a Savabeel-Bohemian Lily colt from the Valachi Downs dispersal made $360,000.  

The chestnut Chaldean colt is just the second of his southern hemisphere-bred weanlings to be offered at auction this year, following on from a filly who sold for $180,000 at the Inglis Great Southern Sale in Melbourne earlier this month.

Chaldean, a 2000 Guineas and Dewhurst Stakes winner by champion sire Frankel, will return to Cambridge Stud later this year for his third southern hemisphere season.

The supplemented colt by Paddington, a son of champion French sire Siyouni, also came in for strong competition from buyers late in the session.

A half-brother to John O’Shea’s Randwick Guineas winner Lion’s Roar was sold by Seaton Park to Liam Peters’ Byerley Bloodstock who successfully bid online to land the colt for his grandfather, prominent Western Australian owner-breeder Bob Peters.

The colt will head to Western Australia to grow out before being put into training. 

“It was obviously a big point going into the sale, him being a supplementary entry and a half-brother to a Group 1 winner,” Peters said. 

“He’s out of a family that obviously throws plenty of black type. And I was always personally a big fan of Paddington as a racehorse. I was quite shocked that he ended up shuttling to New Zealand. I thought he was one of those top-class racehorses that they (Coolmore) might have thought too valuable to travel. 

“But it’s great that we have access to him through New Zealand. I’m really happy to have secured this bloke today.

“We’ll bring him straight home now and put him out with a few of our other weanlings and see how he compares with them. Hopefully he’s one of the standouts going forward.”

Meanwhile, Super Seth, who will stand in Australia at Coolmore’s Hunter Valley farm this year after six seasons at Waikato Stud, sired the next four highest-priced weanlings sold at Karaka.

Kiwi Paul Pertab paid $180,000 for a Waikato Stud-offered colt out of Popular, the same figure that Bleakley Bloodstock paid for Haunui Farm’s Super Seth-Incanto Rose colt.

For Pertab, the purchase of a Super Seth was his first after admiring his offspring from afar.

“I like the sire, but couldn’t afford one of his progeny until today,” Pertab said. 

“As well as being by such a good sire, this colt has good legs and nice balance.

“They change so much between now and when you put a saddle on them, but you’ve just got to go with your gut instinct. I thought this was a tidy horse.

“Whether he goes towards the Ready to Run Sale or whatever else we do with him, it’s just going to depend on what mould he fits into at the time.”

The Bleakley Bloodstock-purchased Super Seth colt will definitely return to the Karaka Yearling Sale next January.

“He was a really nice colt,” Libby Bleakley said. 

“We came here a few weanlings short at the end of the Australian series, so we just needed a couple of really nice standouts by good sires to fill out the draft for January. We are very happy to get our top-ranked one, very happy to get him.

“It’s also significant that he’s out of a Per Incanto mare. He’s having great success as a broodmare sire, obviously headed by Ka Ying Rising in Hong Kong, so I’m happy to add this colt to the band.”

Coolmore’s Tom Moore also made his trip across the Tasman worthwhile with the purchase of Highline Thoroughbreds’ Super Seth-Loquita colt for $160,000.

Turnover at NZB’s one-day sale rose 49 per cent to $3.593 million. The 102 weanlings sold at Karaka averaged $35,255, up 23 per cent year on year.

The clearance rate was also 89 per cent, with buyers from Australia, China, Hong Kong and Japan clashing with a strong domestic bench.

“The results today are very encouraging for the season ahead for both the Ready to Run and National Yearling Sale,” NZB managing director Andrew Seabrook said.

“The first season sires all sold very well, and the only disappointment was that we didn’t have enough horses to sell.

“Hopefully breeders will have a look at the results today and realise the wonderful opportunities that this sale presents. 

“It’s vital that this physical weanling sale continues, so NZB’s goal for next year is to increase the size of the catalogue.”