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Burnewang North Pastoral offerings make $90,000 a piece
Despite selling a pair of colts by Sebring (More Than Ready) and Caravaggio (Scat Daddy) for $90,000 a piece at the Inglis Great Southern Sale on Wednesday and finishing the day as the leading vendor, Cathy Hains of Burnewang North Pastoral could not hide her disappointment at farm’s overall results at the sale.
“A couple of our horses sold okay,” said Hains. “We’re disappointed across the board at the results. We had a pretty outstanding draft but that’s for us to say and unless the potential buyers are able to view them, we completely accept that it’s very difficult to buy them. I think the limited interest in them online is evident in the prices.
“These are difficult times. We completely anticipated that people in every area of business and life in general are facing some real challenges at the moment so a non-essential, luxury item like horses is going to represent a challenge.
“I think that from the top down to the lesser end, these horses at a normal auction would’ve bought considerably more money. 30, 40, 50 per cent, I don’t know but we’ve passed in a few and we’ll wait and see what we do with them but in my opinion it is very guarded. I think it was always going to be a difficult sale and that’s what it turned out to be.”
Vendors have understandably been left feeling frustrated with the ever changing climate due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced Victoria back into lockdown and Hains was quick to put Wednesday’s results into perspective.
“It’s been a huge road to the end result because we would've loved to have sold them in June on site,” said Hains.
“We then we accepted that the sale would be pushed out to July and then we accepted of course that with the COVID problems in Melbourne that we were pushed to go to Sydney but that all fell in a heap so it’s really been a whole set of very unsettling circumstances but we’re able to absorb all of that.
“There’s plenty of other businesses that are in a lot more trouble than us and whilst we’re disappointed and it’s been detrimental to our results, there’s a lot worse problems out there. I do understand it’s a luxury buying horses and a lot of people aren’t looking at that kind of investment right at the moment.”
The colt by former Coolmore Stud shuttler Caravaggio was purchased by Ciaron Maher, who said he had been impressed when he saw the stallion on his travels in Europe a few years ago.
“I saw Caravaggio at Coolmore when I was travelling around and I really liked him then and thought he had the right credentials, but I also really liked the horse as an individual,” said Maher.
“Not too sure what we are going to do, but we really liked the horse and few clients were keen so we thought: why not?”
Catalogued as Lot 602, the colt is out of winning Commands (Danehill) mare National Velvet.
Further back this is the same family as Spring Champion Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) winner Complacent (Authorized) and fellow Group 1 winner Dracula (Quest For Fame).
Meanwhile, the Sebring colt was catalogued as Lot 508 and was purchased by E Hirsch for $90,000.
The colt is out of the unraced Commands mare Midnight Fantasy, who is herself out of Salinger Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Ancient Song (Canny Lad), making her half-sister to Listed winner Tampiko (Lonhro).
The colt shares a page with multiple Group 1 winner Preferment (Zabeel), who now stands at Brighthill Farm, while Listed winners Royal Lott (Royal Abjar) and Danzig Beau (Slant) also feature on the pedigree.
Burnewang North Pastoral finished the day as the leading vendor selling eight weanlings for an aggregate of $439,500 at an average of $54,938.
At the close of trade, Inglis reported that 64 select weanlings sold for an aggregate of $1,456,150 at an average of $22,752.
