Many Overseas Visitors For Yearling Sales

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30340, 16 January 1964, Page 4

Many Overseas Visitors For Yearling Sales

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, January 15. Over 80 prospective buyers from Australia, and prominent breeders, trainers and owners from England, France and the United States are expected at Trentham next week when 376 thoroughbred yearlings will be offered at auction in the course of the three-day thirty-eighth National Sales. Advance reports from the studs point to this year’s offerings being at least the equal of past years, with some outstanding entries, among them a number by sires, new to New Zealand, which are sure to attract attention. The original catalogue was 431, reduced to 376 by the 55 withdrawals to date. Last year 264 yearlings were sold for a total of 190,725 guineas, an average of 7221 guineas, with the top price, a record for a colt of 6000gns. The sale record for an individual is the 7000gns paid for Tulloch’s sister in 1961. The sales are scheduled for January 21, 22 and 23, with 164 yearlings to be offered on the first day, 171 on the second day, and the remaining 41 on the morning of the third day before the sale of brood mares, stallions, racing and untried stock. New System A revolutionary change has been made this year in the order of sale, the yearlings being sold in the alphabetical order of the names of their dams, as against the previous system of balloting breeders’ names, which enabled each vendor to sell his offerings as a stud draft. The draw this year concerned only the initial letter of the dams’ names, and first on the list will be the F’s, going right through the alphabetical list back to E’s. This is experimental at this stage, and changes are likely in the coming years if the new system, which has an American basis, does not meet with general approval.

Prominent overseas visitors include Lieutenant-Colonel F. M. Beale, director of the British Bloodstock Agency, who will be making his first visit to the Dominion, Mr R. McAlpine, a prominent English owner and breeder, who is president of the Racehorse Owners’ Association and a member of the Council of the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association, and leading French trainer Mr Alex Head, who won an English Derby with Pinza and trains for the Aga Khan and M. Pierre Wertheimer. Mr Head will be accompanied by his wife and son.

United States visitors include Mr.F. William Harder, of New York, for whom two yearlings were bought at the last sales, Mr R. H. Simonson, and his mother, Mrs G. C. Simonson, of Long Island, New York, who bought two yearlings privately last year, and Mr Donald McKellar, of Chicago, who was also a buyer, through a representative, last year. Australians who intend to be present, attracted no doubt by the continued successes of New Zealand-bred horses in all States, include former Takanini trainer, H. H. Riley, who has had considerable success since he went to Sydney; L. B. Israel, owner of the Segenhoe Stud, Scone, and president of the Australian Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association; R. P. Miller, who bought a number of horses privately in the Dominion last year; J. Mulcahy (Melbourne), J. Denham (Sydney); G. Boland (Brisbane), and B. Cummings and C. Hayes (Adelaide). Mr John Inglis, head of William Inglis and Son, bloodstock agents, Sydney, will be making his first visit to the sales for some years. Top Australian trainer, T. J. Smith, always a big and often successful buyer at the sales, will be here again. Others include trainer R. Roden (Sydney), K. Young (Brisbane), and P. Burke and B. Conaghan (Melbourne).