Bidding Open for Gavelhouse Plus National Online Broodmare Sale

The 81-lot National Online Broodmare and Stallion Share Sale, which includes stallion shares offered in Reliable Man (Dalakhani) and Shocking (Street Cry), is open for bidding now and will close incrementally on Wednesday 20 July from 7PM (NZT). 

New Zealand Bloodstock is happy to once again put its confidence in online sales platform Gavelhouse Plus to deliver strong results. The operation sparked a frenzy of one-off online auctions for mares, with the sale of Spanish Whisper (Lope De Vega) for $1,202,500 breaking records in October 2020, then in September last year, nine-time Group One winner Avantage (Fastnet Rock) topped that by selling for $4.1 million to Coolmore.

The recent Valachi Downs dispersal auction, held online on Gavelhouse Plus, also produced strong results, with the $1.75 million sale of Tofane’s (Ocean Park) dam Baggy Green (Galileo) to Yulong.

“Our digital subsidiary, Gavelhouse Plus, has a system that has probably been tested more than anyone else’s. We’re really confident with it and we want to make it an integral part of our sales,” commented NZB Director of Business Development Mike Kneebone.

“We just thought with the numbers of broodmare entries this year we’d go online. Even though New Zealand has now opened up, it has been a fairly slowly-run affair.

“There’s still a lot of resistance to travel, including from Australia, and I think that will continue to be the case right the way through to the Ready to Run Sale in November. The logical way to go was for an online broodmare sale this year.”

Among the 79 broodmares on offer is Group One winner Il Quello Veloce (Captain Rio), who is in foal to U S Navy Flag (War Front), and Group Two winner and Group One placegetter Floria (Savabeel), who has already produced the Group Two-performed Captain Corelli (Tavistock). She is offered by Haunui Farm as Lot 31 to dissolve a partnership. Haunui will also offer Kate Cross (Cape Cross), the dam of Group One winner Consensus (Postponed).

Young mares offered in foal to prominent stallions include the unraced Abit Iffey (Iffraaj), a half-sister to Group Three winner Tavarnelle (Savabeel) and carrying a positive scan to leading sire Per Incanto (Street Cry), while mares in foal to up-and-coming sires Vadamos (Monsun), Time Test (Dubawi), Ribchester (Iffraaj), Super Seth (Dundeel) and Almanzor (Wootton Bassett) will also form attractive propositions for buyers.

A rare collectors’ item could be Patromonium, who is a daughter of Green Desert (Danzig), and a half-sister to Listed winner Rockatella (Rock Of Gibraltar). She is offered in foal to Almanzor as Lot 63.

“I think there’s something for everyone. We’ve seen that buyers are really craving quality and the cream will rise to the top, just like it does in every other sale,” Kneebone said. 

“Those mares in foal to Per Incanto, he’s the leading sire (by winners) in Hong Kong and has done a fantastic job this year, they’ll be well sought after. And Lot 18, the Commands’ mare Commentate, has a valuable cover to Shocking inside of her and Shocking just continues to go from strength to strength in Australia. He had a couple of really strong winners in the weekend with Hezashocka and Horrifying. There’s a stallion share in Shocking available as well.”

“The professionalism of the stud farms and bloodstock agents that are operating in the market at the moment, they really leave no stone unturned when it comes to looking through catalogues, no matter if they’re online or a physical sale. But all the big farms, they track down families, pedigrees, types and then they buy them. They really do a good job of it,” he said.

“We’ve gone about this sale in the usual way and a lot of the work has been done by our agents Kane Jones, Regan Donnison and John Cameron, who have gone around and had a look at all this stock that’s going online and that does take a lot of time.

“At the end of the day, you’ve got expert eyes cast over the stock and we can then feed back to our clients. It’s a tried and tested method that we’re using, and I think it’s going to be very beneficial to people as they can easily find out about the horses through our agents and other agents in New Zealand for the online system.

“We’ll once again see how it pans out this year, but we’re very happy with the quality and confident that the online system will produce some good sales.” – ANZ Bloodstock News