Breeder

HH88 --I will stick my neck out with a suggestion along the lines of your thinking. Derryn who is standing at Grangewilliam Stud is line bred to Easy Date. I am a fan of looking carefully at the damsire of a stallion, in this case Lonhro ( I'm a big fan of him). With Lonhro we get Eight Carat. Clive Harper said Eight Carat performed well with Nasrullah and his female line family. Easy Date has 2 lines of Nasrullah so here is an opportunity to try breeding to two females which in theory should like each other.. I am watching out for Derryn progeny with line(s) of Eight Carat in the

I am in Aussie at the moment and on their racing channels there are quite a few "nostalgia" programs replaying the good races of the 70s, 80s & 90s. A lot of Kiwi trained horses in them doing very well, so I think Berri has a point, above with his comment on NZ trainers and their methods. Many good horsemen but are they up to date on training methods and the technology available? The stats tell us that our breeders are still turning out the good horses , the RtR sales graduates continue to turn out good horses (so the breakers and early educators are doing a good job) so I think it le

I'm in Perth on some family business. I tried to get on the TAB site just to check results but I got a message saying the site was not available over here. Does Aussie not allow betting on the NZ TAB or is this some sorting blocking of the site ?? I was able to get on the Love Racing site to see the recent results.

Red Rum I see Spirit of Valor sold for $40K to Esker Lodge ( ex NZers, the Treweeks, I think) They may have been bidding for a NZ stud. Will have to watch the news.

Count Octave sold for A$25,000

Will be interesting to watch Red Rum. Other than the Frankel factor the Aussies probably would not be that interested, given the staying pedigree and race performance. Also I note that Aquis have not got it unreserved like Spiritjim was. They may end up keeping him to stand themselves.

Valachi Downs are consolidating. https://loveracing.nz/News/32800/BusinessmodelchangeforValachiDowns.aspx Will be interesting to see who picks up US Navy Flag.

Can you try linking that again please Ragamuffin. Would really like to look at it.

While I understand your point about the win at high odds and some people would see the win as a fluke because of it, I do not think serious people looking at him as a stallion prospect would or should think that way. Lunar Fox won the VRC Sires Produce (Grp 2) as a two year old. Like Hinchinbrook , Foxwedge is by Fastnet Rock. Lunar Fox is from a USA female family --is that a plus or a negative, I do not know. But looking at the race on Saturday it would not surprise to win more black type races and over more distance At this stage I would not think he is in the "hot property" catego

That's interesting Red Rum. Bought in 2015 for Euro 570,000. That is a while ago and even though he raced in Australia it makes you wonder if he had some issues --fertility? I hope I'm wrong and the Sun Stud guys just thought he would be a hard sell in the Australian market, where they are all into fast maturing ,sprinters/miler types.

Sold for A$11,000.

"To be fair, we race them to compare who is fastest/best, correct?" That is true for what a race is all about, but I think Pam is referring to comparing, say Melody Belle with Sunline

Quite a good looking prospect in the Inglis Online sale (for the end of Feb.). Spiritjim. Unreserved and being sold by Sun Stud (as agent). https://inglisdigital.com/lot/30000102.262.htm

There does not seem to be much interest in the Gavelhouse + sale , which is the replacement for NZB Book 3, at this stage . A number of studs, including Cambridge Stud, have entries to support the new sale. It could be that people are waiting until the last day to get into action, but I think there seems to be some interesting lots on offer. Some of the fillies will be good potential broodmares even if they do not get onto the track.

It is interesting that the buyers took a while to wake up to the Time Test yearlings. The longer the sale went on the more popular he became. It will be interesting to see how they go in Australia. But yearling sales are like a "fashion industry" --last year Wrote was getting very favourable reviews but this year they were hard to sell.