Karaka 2003 National Yearling Sales Series Summary

�Our pre-sale prediction of an extensive buying bench, but sporting more conservative budgets attending Karaka this year, proved spot on. We have concluded the 2003 National Yearling Sales Series with results that we view as satisfactory and close to company expectations overall, in a less than ideal world economic environment.

The most pleasing results came at our Premier Sale where we managed to grow the median and most importantly increase our clearance rate from last year, despite the introduction of our first yearling X-ray repository. To keep the Premier Sale average so close to last year, with a top price of $660,000 compared to the $1million+ yearlings we've had in the past few years, indicates the overall demand was very sound with the dollars being distributed evenly across most drafts this year.

The most positive outcome of the National Yearling Sales for us is that we have proven beyond doubt that we can attract an extensive bench of thoroughbred buyers from all over the world to our sales. The buyers, particularly from Australia, were here en masse this year.

We were quite overwhelmed by the feedback we received from countless international buyers, regulars and new faces, about how impressed they were by the whole event at Karaka this year, the facilities, the friendly atmosphere the social scene and above all by the quality of yearlings we put in front of them. We have some highly talented young studmasters here in New Zealand who do an outstanding job in breeding and preparing yearlings to the highest standards.

So long as we keep breeding and presenting a world class product we now have all the elements required to attract a fabulous bench of buyers to Karaka.

Across all sessions of the 2003 National Yearling Sales Series we have actually managed to increase the overall average price from last year, to $48,696 for 970 yearlings sold. That is a significant achievement in a difficult marketplace. Our aggregate was always going to struggle to approach last year's level as we started with 213 less horses catalogued this year.

Increasingly we are seeing the �flight to quality' trend continuing where in tight market conditions the demand for quality just gets stronger. We do currently face the challenge of finding new markets to boost demand for lower end product. In the mean time, no doubt the more top end product we can present through our sales ring the better the overall results will be, � was the immediate post-sales series comment from General Manager, Bloodstock & Marketing, Julia Naismith.

OVERALL SALES SERIES AVERAGE = $48,696
LAST YEAR = $46,942

OVERALL SALES SERIES AGGREGATE = $47,235,200
LAST YEAR = $54,875,300

OVERALL SALES SERIES LOTS CATALOGUED = 1520
LAST YEAR = 1733

OVERALL SALES SERIES LOTS SOLD = 970
LAST YEAR = 1169

OVERALL SALES SERIES LOTS WITHDRAWN = 182
LAST YEAR = 193

OVERALL SALES SERIES LOTS OFFERED = 1338
LAST YEAR = 1540

OVERALL SALES SERIES CLEARANCE RATE = 73%
LAST YEAR = 75%

TOP PRICE = $660,000 ZABEEL X L'QUIZ FILLY
LAST YEAR = $1,050,000

All results from the 2003 National Yearling Sales Series can be viewed by clicking the relevant Results button beside the catalogue of interest on our home page at www.nzb.co.nz