$4M spent on yearlings at Australian sales

Press, 10 April 1980, Page 26

$4M spent on yearlings at Australian sales

NZPA Sydney Buyers spent more than $4 million at the opening of the Easter Yearling Sales at Randwick on Tuesday in what was described as the most spectacular thoroughbred spending spree ever seen in Australia, Leading trainer Bart Cummings led the charge, spending $850,000 on 14 magnificent yearlings, averaging more than $60,000 a lot. Cummings’s top priced yearling, the Kaoru Star - Soft Slipper bay colt he bought for $125,000 during the afternoon session was a record purchase, but was to last as the standard for only a couple of hours, During the first hour of the evening session, the Randwick trainer Neville Begg, doubled the* record with a successful bid of

$250,000 for a superb Showdown n Vain Queen chestnut Three other yearlings were sold during the evening session, topping Cummings’s afternoon record price — with the English pools magnate, Mr Robert Sangster, buying two of them. Sangster, the underbidder for the $250,000 filly, wasn’t to be outdone and bought a highly-impressive Vain Wiley Trade bay filly for $130,000, and a splendid type of chestnut colt by Baguette from Bete A Bon Dieu for $lBO,OOO. Mr Sangster purchased seven yearlings on Tuesday for a total of $549,000 at an average of almost $75,000. The other $lOO,OOO-plus yearling was a chunky bay colt by Boucher from the former top race mare Visit.

The leading South Australian trainer, Colin Hayes, paid $155,000 for the colt, his only; purchase of the day,