Pinhooking Success Highlights NZB’s Weanling Sale

If results from the last few years are anything to go by, the upcoming National Weanling, Broodmare and Mixed Bloodstock Sale at Karaka looms as not only a great source of winners on the racetrack but also a potential gold mine for pinhookers.

With the Weanling Sale average sitting just above NZ$12,000 last year and 294 weanlings catalogued this year, there is plenty of opportunity for buyers to pinhook youngsters into next year’s yearling and Ready to Run sales.

Recent years are littered with examples of astute buyers identifying potential at the Weanling Sale and going on to pinhook them for a significant profit in less than twelve months.

There are four standout examples from last year’s Sale that went on to become hot property:

• A colt by the sire sensation Tavistock was purchased by Hyde Park Bloodstock for $18,000 at the Weanling Sale. He returned to the ring for this year’s Select Sale and sold for $160,000.
• A Nicconi colt out of Rhandara cost $30,000 at the Weanling Sale. Phoenix Park prepared him for the Select Sale and sold him to Te Akau’s David Ellis for $170,000.
• Another Tavistock colt, this time out of Lady In Waiting, was purchased by Lyndhurst Farm for $58,000 at the Weanling Sale. He fetched $200,000 at this year’s Premier Sale.
• A yearling O’Reilly gelding out of Breezy was purchased by Barry Beatson for $4,250 in the Mixed Bloodstock session of the Sale. He returned just over six months later for the Ready to Run Sale, where he fetched $60,000.

The 2014 Weanling Sale produced an even more spectacular result, with Beatson turning a $400 colt by Tavistock out of Bantry Bay into a $250,000 Ready to Run Sale two-year-old in 2015. In the same timeframe Bruce and Maureen Harvey at Ascot Farm paid $160,000 for a weanling O’Reilly colt and prepared him for the 2015 Ready to Run Sale, where he broke Sale records with his price of $525,000.

Weanlings in this year’s catalogue include the eagerly anticipated first crops by the likes of Dawn Approach, Unencumbered, Camelot, Jakkalberry, Ferlax, Eurozone, Epaulette, Declaration Of War, Shamexpress, Albrecht and Sweet Orange. As well as proven and emerging sires such as O’Reilly, Tavistock, Choisir, Darci Brahma, Showcasing, Makfi, Jimmy Choux, So You Think, Alamosa, Ocean Park, I Am Invincible, Hinchinbrook, Pins, Shocking, Per Incanto, Iffraaj, Rip Van Winkle, Power, Foxwedge, Swiss Ace and many more.

This May buyers will have 294 opportunities to find the next sale ring star with that number of weanlings catalogued during the first two days of selling at NZB’s National Weanling, Broodmare & Mixed Bloodstock Sale at Karaka (9 - 11 May 2016).

The Sale also features broodmares, yearlings, two-year-olds, unraced horses, racehorses and stallion shares.

Catalogues can be requested from reception@nzb.co.nz or can be viewed online. For further Sale information visit www.nzb.co.nz.