National Yearling Sale: ‘Paddocks bring champs to podiums’

Auction house Bloodstock SA has upped its marketing game ahead of its annual flagship event, the National Yearling Sale (NYS), in Germiston on Thursday and Friday this week, 10 and 11 April.

Stirring, lyrical prose rings out of BSA’s latest press release, luring buyers to what it says is “the gold standard” racehorse sale.

It promises “more than just another catalogue” but an offering that “carries the stature of South African thoroughbred breeding’s proudest legacy”.

It adds: “Rivalries come and go. That’s the nature of any thriving marketplace. But a hundred years of trust is not something you can manufacture, let alone put under the hammer.”

Take that, rival upstarts!

There’s more: “The Sales Complex – now almost 50 years old – is far more than a venue. It’s a living museum of champions, its walls lined with the faces of horsemen and breeders who shaped this game: the Birch Brothers, Terrance Millard, Mary Slack, David Payne, Mike de Kock, and many more. If these walls could talk, they’d tell stories of legends, of paddocks that brought champions to podiums.”

High quality horses on offer

To be fair, the NYS is likely to be a tremendous sale – if Donald Trump hasn’t wrecked the world economy by then.

The 346 lots might be fewer than last year, but there’s no argument about the high quality of horseflesh on offer. The country’s top 20 active stallions are all represented, with current log-leader Vercingetorix,
Gimmethegreenlight, Master Of My Fate, Querari, Rafeef and red-hot One World among them.

The top breeders are there – Drakenstein, Wilgerbosdrift & Mauritzfontein, Varsfontein and Maine Chance, along with smaller, well-proven producers like Clifton, Cheveley and Narrow Creek.

BSA’s target is 2024’s NYS record average price of R581,948. If the national individual record price of R9-million is broken it will be another sign that local horse racing is on an upward trajectory. That record was set back in 2019 – pre-Covid and racing operator bankruptcies – and was only equalled at the most recent Cape Yearling Sale.

With South Africa edging back into international racing, with the removal of equine export protocols, we could see a larger than usual foreign buying presence. Foreign dollars will be a huge boost to the market but will inevitably drive out less endowed local bidders.

Commentators on the local game are constantly bemoaning the relative paucity of “smaller” horse owners – the bread-and-butter providers of material for an ever-hungry betting market.

Less costly options

Concerned that racing could become a desert island of the wealthy, the likes of Sporting Post point out that inexpensive thoroughbred purchases are still possible – even at “gold standard” NYS.

“Prospective buyers can take heart … many a fine racehorse has been bought for far less, with pride of place going to last season’s Grade 1 Premier Champions Challenge winner Royal Victory, who was snapped up by trainer Nathan Kotzen for a measly R90,000 at the National Sale four years ago,” says the website.

“Main Defender, who defied top weight in the (recent) Hawaii Stakes, also qualifies as a bargain buy. The Pathfork four-year-old changed hands for just R140,000 as a yearling, a far cry from an impressive bankroll of over R3-million and a 10-win haul…”

The best “cheapy” examples of recent years have been Garden Province Stakes winner Humdinger and champion juvenile Qui Pro Quo – bought for R50,000 and R60,000 respectively.

“All of this goes to show that yes, it is possible to purchase a ‘good one’ without spending an arm and a leg,” argues the journal.