Insider

Excellent question Leggy. Everyone for decades has done it, so I for one certainly don't think anything has changed, unless you have a wet tracker and it makes sense to stay in the North, South they will all continue to go, mark my words.

Leggy, I am totally on-side with you and the banning of the whip and if we don't, racing wont last another 10 or 15 years! However, I have never seen a welt bleed, ever. In the old days I saw plenty of welt marks, but I don't even notice them today with the newer "softer" whips, but it's the image that is being portray that's doing all the damage. Why cant those in charge see the damage that the use of a whip in racing is doing? Now I guess that I will get a phone call, an email or Scobie will censored for allowing me to question those in charge!

Randwick R1 - Kokatahi 3rd $1.80 = $18.00

Randwick R1 - Kokatahi Thanks guys.

Hear, hear!

One basic difference is that the Te Akau model is more aligned to 2 and 3 year old racing verses OTI’s older and/or staying horses. Of course there are plenty on exceptions in each case, my statement above is simply a generalisation. P.S. OTI nearly bought a horse off me but their vet failed it. Instead it went to HK were it won over NZ $1.4 million. In hindsight I wish that it had gone to OTI as I would have kept a share and I am sure that he would have been equally as successful in Aust.

Absolutely they sell shares, only a different model to Te Akau, in that they prefer to buy a semi proven horse rather than an unproven yearling.

Monday Five days is a long time to wait, but there was something particularly neat about OTI’s remarkable feat at Royal Ascot this year, when the Australian-based syndicator celebrated the first and last winners of the meeting. Race one on Tuesday - the Queen Anne Stakes - was taken out for the blue and gold hoops by five-year-old entire Docklands, who two years earlier had become the group’s first Ascot winner in the Britannia Stakes. And race 35 late on Saturday afternoon - the Queen Alexandra Stakes - went to the Willie Mullins-trained Sober, who’s now the latest Melbourne Cup aspirant for the OTI stable. The rare bookends double, with their only two starters of the week, was in a way redolent of the methodical progress OTI continues to make. A quarter of a century since its birth out of director Terry Henderson’s old harness racing syndicator Pacers Australia, the group has never been stronger. In the last 12 months, the syndicator’s winners have been led by two elite victors in two hemispheres, with Docklands’ Queen Anne preceded by the South Australian Derby success of Femminile in May. Add in a handful of other Group wins, several elite placings, West Of Africa’s triumph in the lucrative Magic Millions Cup and an overall haul of 17 black-type successes, and the Australasian 2024-25 has been another campaign of emphatic validation for OTI, its business model, and the processes it has honed over the years. “I don’t think we’ll get to the 100 winners [before the end of Australian season on July 31] unless something dramatic happens in these last few weeks,” Henderson said. “But we’ve had a very good year on the stakes side of it. Two Group 1s, we’ve been second in about three more, and 17 black-type wins - it’s been good on the better races. We’ve also had a lot more city winners this year than the previous year. “And to do what we did at Royal Ascot - it was an incredibly exciting time, a career thrill for most of us, especially winning the Queen Anne. When you look at the perpetual trophy of that race and see names like Frankel, Toronado, Goldikova, et cetera, it was a pretty special feeling to win it.” Henderson credits OTI’s strength to a policy that strives to eliminate some of the guesswork from this game of hope and chance. That’s by leaning away from the blank canvas of yearlings towards buying proven horses - either those with racetrack form, ready to run prospects they can see gallop in breeze-up sales, or yearlings and two-year-olds showing trackwork prowess before racing. Henderson cites the example of Femminile. Trainer Phillip Stokes and Rick Connolly Bloodstock bought half of the filly - the breeders stayed in for the other half - for A$75,000 at Inglis Easter 2023. Henderson said: “Phil had had the filly for a little while. He told the other owners he’d find an owner for it. “He told me, ‘I think you should have a look at this filly’. I had a look and I quite liked her. She wasn’t overly big but she was very athletic and she could move well, so we came in then. It was typical of one of those situations where the trainers say, ‘Would you like to join us? We think she goes alright.’ “Our policy is not so much to buy at yearling sales but to look at horses who’ve got to the first prep or second prep stage, and the trainer is still owning the horse. We get a lot of invitations to look at horses at that stage. We’ve probably bought five or six that way in the last 12 months. “It’s been a hard year for trainers to place [sell down] their horses. Given our policy of waiting until the horses are broken in and we can see them going, a lot of trainers have been in the situation where they’ve held their stock, been happy with their stock, and then want to sell down. That’s when they approach us. We go and have a look at them gallop, and decide what we think.” He added: “For our business and our clients, or anyone, buying horses is a high risk strategy. We’re very much on the proven horse side, and always have been. “For that reason, we quite like the breeze-up sales. We’ve bought four horses that way - two in Ireland and two at Arqana - in the last ten days. “We’re usually fairly active in New Zealand on that front too, and we were active this year in Australia as well on ready to run sales [breeze-up]. They tend to be our source.” New Zealand has been a fertile field for OTI, including buying into horses off initial barrier trials - as was the case with I’m Thunderstruck - or after one or two races, like when 1995 Melbourne Cup hero Doriemus was purchased way back before Pacers Australia morphed into OTI in 1999. Aside from sticking to method, another kind of stability has helped. “Historically, that has been the way we’ve sourced our horses in New Zealand - out of trials or maybe one race,” Henderson said. “It’s been a strength of our business right back to Doriemus 30 years ago. “And we’ve had the same agent in New Zealand for 20 years, in Phil Cataldo. We’ve got a very close relationship with Phil and that’s been a real strength to our business.” Mind you, there has been some change at OTI this season, managerially, with the sale of 25 per cent of the business each to Gus Boyd, who runs its Sydney office, and Shayne Driscol, a key executive in the Melbourne home base. And adhering to time-honoured principles does not mean OTI is sitting still and not keeping aware of shifting market conditions, especially in Europe where they buy a large proportion of stock. “It’s been a different season from a marketing point of view,” Henderson said. “The gloss of Covid, which was so good for the industry, has now passed, and with the economic situation and the devaluation of the Australian dollar against the Euro and the pound, the cost of international racehorses has certainly gone up. “You need to be more prudent if you’re going to be spending an extra 15 per cent before you even start. “But we’ve been just as active in that market and will continue to be. Subject to vets, we’ve bought two going horses this week.” One of those is three-year-old Boniface, bought by OTI and partners for €250,000 at last week’s Arqana Summer Sale. A winner of three from five including over a mile at St Cloud last week, the colt will soon be transferred to Melbourne’s Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr’s stable, with a faint hope of a spring appearance but autumn targets more likely. Another branch of OTI’s operations which has enjoyed a robust season is broodmare sales. Six-year-old Under Your Spell, bought privately after a Group 1-winning career in South Africa, was sold to Yulong’s Growing Empire Syndicate at the Inglis Chairman’s Sale for A$1.2 million (£576,662 / €668,206). Five-year-old Lady Laguna- bought out of a paddock for a song by Henderson before earning A$2.6 million (£1,249,434 / €1,447,780) as a Group 1 winner - sold to James Harron for A$2.5 million (£1,201,379 / €1,392,096) at the Magic Millions Gold Coast National Broodmare sale. And in a delicious piece of happenstance, the aforementioned Femminile went to the same sale unexpectedly as a Group 1 victor, having claimed the South Australian Derby three weeks earlier as a 18-1 chance. “She surprised us,” Henderson said. “We’d already entered her for the broodmare sale before the South Australian Derby. In hindsight, we probably wouldn’t have had her in the sale had we known she was going to win it. But we left her in the sale thinking we’d get overs for our clients. “To get $1.5 million (£720,827 / €835,258) was great for our owners, because frankly when we put her in the sale we thought she’d be worth about $250,000 (£120,137 / €139,209.” “It was a big thing for us to sell three high-value mares this season. It’s very important we have a business model that gives owners a chance to get a good return with these mares if they perform. “Yulong have been fantastic for the market in Australia, and that’s good, but the market generally for those top-end mares is very strong globally. There’s still new owners coming into the business. The market through the Middle East is very strong, and that will stimulate other buyers to come into the market.” OTI is looking to the spring enthusiastically thanks to stayers including Deakin, who was imported from Ireland after winning two of nine starts to win three of his first five in Australia last autumn, two in Listed class. There’s also Warmonger, bought out of the New Zealand Ready To Run Sale [breeze-up] before claiming last year’s Queensland Derby, and Kiwi-trained stayer Mark Twain, who’s on the comeback trail from a tendon injury after taking Flemington’s Roy Higgins Quality in his Australian debut in March last year. OTI’s Royal Ascot double came thanks to purchases from two corners of their business model. Slightly against the syndicator’s MO, Docklands was a yearling acquisition, recommended by UK-based Australian bloodstock boffin Stuart Boman as a half-brother to OTI’s Australian Listed-winning French import Harbour Views. Costing only £16,000, he’s now won around £863,000, with more mile targets ahead in coming months which potentially include Goodwood’s Sussex Stakes, Deauville’s Prix Jacques Le Marois and, back at Ascot, Champions Day’s Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. Sober perhaps better fits OTI’s traditional buying model, purchased in tandem with Mullins as a tried horse last year at Arqana’s The Arc Sale, for €115,000. The gelding rekindles the OTI-Mullins combination which enjoyed success with staying mare True Self, who won 11 races including the 2019 and 2020 editions of Flemington’s Queen Elizabeth Stakes. “Doing such a double at Royal Ascot is the highlight of OTIs existence, no doubt,” Henderson said. “We had quite a number of owners involved in these horses. That’s our job, to get as many of our owners as possible enjoying the fruits of these wins. “And because Docklands was a modestly-priced horse, a couple of the owners were first-time owners, alongside some of our old friends. So there was a great sense of satisfaction on behalf of our owners to have these two horses.” While the glow remains bright from a magical week at Ascot, Henderson said he won’t dwell on it for too long. “We’ve been blessed with having some very good years in the past few years, and with winning a couple of Group 1s,” he said. “But you know, it’s the next one you’re more excited about than the last one.”

MEAN

Flemington R8 No 10 Oh Too Good I hope so

You are off the mark, suggesting that my bias towards Trentham, is the reason for my liking of the drone shots. If they had had a drone following them over the Ellerslie Hill how good would that have been?

I beg to differ.

Agree. Sad isn’t it, but I guess the fuckwhits know best.

Yes, but it highlights the idiots that have been involved with the running of NZ Racing over the last 25 years, whether it be the galloping code, Alexandra park or whatever. P.S. Disclosure: I have a number of horses that I am still paying for in the galloping code in both NZ and Aust, and a harness horse in NZ. Possibly I am an idiot, but I have had a special reason to keep going, as many of you know!

But wont Auckland try and gazump Wellington and get Matt to call the Great Northern's?