KIII Festival Sale should be canned & KII sale increased to 4 days

[WOODBINE 88]

The NZ racing industry is going through serious restructuring and its is time that NZB responded to this retrenching market and cancelled the Festival sale in 2012.

Instead the KII Select Sale should be increased to a 4 day sale so that those top end Festival vendors have a chance to present their product in front of a decent buying bench.

There will be no serious NZ based buyers for at least 3 years and a disasterous 2012 Festival sale is ahead - count my words.

NZ breeders are not sending their mares to stud this year in their droves including myself so NZB has to have some decent planning to restructure their yearling sales series and thereby have yearling sales more open to more breeders.

[trakdap 390]

agree totally.

The domestic market is stuffed.

[optical 41]

The NZ racing industry is going through serious restructuring and its is time that NZB responded to this retrenching market and cancelled the Festival sale in 2012.

Instead the KII Select Sale should be increased to a 4 day sale so that those top end Festival vendors have a chance to present their product in front of a decent buying bench.

There will be no serious NZ based buyers for at least 3 years and a disasterous 2012 Festival sale is ahead - count my words.

NZ breeders are not sending their mares to stud this year in their droves including myself so NZB has to have some decent planning to restructure their yearling sales series and thereby have yearling sales more open to more breeders.

Just thinking I agree with some of the stuff you are saying, however, I can see quite a lot of draw backs including lowering the standard of the K2 sale which might scare away some of the international buying bench.

There is usually a reason some of those horses are in K3 (legs or pedigree depth), however, there are some that have good reason to be in the sale above and I blame the studs for their expectations to be the only ones to be looked after at the sale. Studs only look after their own stock and not the small breeder who are supporting them - Yet they are quite happy to give them warm fuzzies when they are promoting their 20k stallion who the small breeder is mating to their K3 mare. The big studs have persuasion at Karaka and that is because they supply the most horses, however, that persuasion has the knock on effect for the small breeder who is quickly forgotten about when the the yearling sales come along.

[trakdap 390]

What about the small breeder who only wants a couple of well bred/good producing mares but still gets put into the festival sale. That needs to be addressed as well or they will eventually sell by trial and that will leave only the big studs selling at Karaka.

Is this a good thing?

[reng 0]

NZ exports around 40% of its foal crop. If the sales company doesn't put you where you think you should be, then it is definitely a good thing to vote with your feet and find a different way to sell.

[trakdap 390]

NZ exports around 40% of its foal crop. If the sales company doesn't put you where you think you should be, then it is definitely a good thing to vote with your feet and find a different way to sell.

But in the long run is it good for NZ Industry as a whole, not just the K3s and I dont think it is voting with your feet necessarily. Luckily I am not in that category (K3) but I am not that smug as to think I may not always be lucky. I have been in this game a long time and have seen a lot come and go, so am thinking whats good for the Industry and I think the Agents and bloodstock companies need to take stock and think of the needs of the small breeder as well as the big studs at ALL times.

[John Clydesdale 229]

The NZ racing industry is going through serious restructuring and its is time that NZB responded to this retrenching market and cancelled the Festival sale in 2012.

Instead the KII Select Sale should be increased to a 4 day sale so that those top end Festival vendors have a chance to present their product in front of a decent buying bench.

There will be no serious NZ based buyers for at least 3 years and a disasterous 2012 Festival sale is ahead - count my words.

NZ breeders are not sending their mares to stud this year in their droves including myself so NZB has to have some decent planning to restructure their yearling sales series and thereby have yearling sales more open to more breeders.

Sorry Woodbine, you need to keep the Festival Sale. History has provided plenty of gems in the rough, but as a buyer they need to be found and as a breeder/vendor a good type can always sell well in Festival but get completely lost in Select.

NZB could add some incentives for the local buying fraternity to buy out of the Select and Festival Sale and that could add further support for the sales.

The critical decisions are these. The selection process, for entry, has to be made by the vendor, and the purchaser makes the selection as to whether to buy or not and at whatever level.

Currently breeders of lesser than K1 quality have too few opportunities to sell yearlings at present. Let us not consider further reducing that option because of some serious industry mismanagement in historical terms and the current economic climate, both are due for change.

Leave Festival as it is, but breeders just need to be more selective as to what they want to offer to buyers. No easy task I agree, but the market will clarify the picture quickly enough.

[Wellfield 0]

Just to throw another idea into the mix, I can see some merit in having an 'unbroken' session at the November Sale - currently known as 'Ready to Run' sale.

Horses that bit nearer the track (agewise) will have greater appeal to the key marketplaces (particuarly Asia), who are at this sale, and are driven by type primarily.

That is the key positive, and allows the cost saving of a yearling preperation for the festival sale, allowing the vendor the option of investing in having the horse broken in and breezed up, or as an unbroken two year old that can go straight to the breakers post sale.

Obvious negatives are the same issues that currently face non commercial fillies, and the reduction in opportunities for those who look to pinhook from the Festival Sale to the Ready to Run Sale.

Worthy of thought?

[trakdap 390]

John,

How can you expect people to breed horses for the domestic market (K3) and sell in Festival Sale. They will be selling at a loss. Would they not be better to get them going to trial stage and sell , at least they have a chance of recouping.

It is pure folly to think that people would sell at a loss for the benefit of the domestic buyer , agents or bloodstock companies.

We need to look a bit deeper into this and come up with better solutions.

[John Clydesdale 229]

John,

How can you expect people to breed horses for the domestic market (K3) and sell in Festival Sale. They will be selling at a loss. Would they not be better to get them going to trial stage and sell , at least they have a chance of recouping.

It is pure folly to think that people would sell at a loss for the benefit of the domestic buyer , agents or bloodstock companies.

We need to look a bit deeper into this and come up with better solutions.

Trakdap, I was not suggesting that you do not progress the horse on to trials should you not receive your reserve at Festival.

My suggestion was that some horses go to any sale, with the vendors thinking one level of sale return and the would be buyers thinking a different figure.

We all do it, no matter which sale you are in, but at the moment the local buying market is very scarce indeed. My suggestion was that some incentives could be implemented by NZB to encourage local buyer support. There has been overseas buyer incentives for a very long time, now the local market needs some support and enticement.

My claim is that there is a need for the Festival Sale to be retained. I am sure, with the right incentives, some owners and trainers would be willing to bid for horses that will be going on to the track when the future plans of NZTR have been implemented next April.

There is no easy solution or silver bullet, and there will definitely be reduced foal crops in the immediate future, but we do need to get horses sold at Festival Sale level.

Unfortunately, putting them into an expanded Select Sale is not going to change their pedigree or type!

[trakdap 390]

John, while I agree with most of your points. I cannot see K3 being of benefit to anyone.

If you had select and festival as one, my feeling is we would get more overseas buyers, a broader buying bench. Not only the ones who want to buy the top end select but more of a mixed buying bench from Aust who could select/buy in their price range, which I might add is a lot more than our domestic buyers would be willing to spend. Of course there would be some losses incured but not as much as with a stricktly domestic sale.

Food for thought.

[Breeder 608]

I stand to be corrected , but haven't they tried this before a few years back ? It was a sort of a midway option -- they expanded the Select and reduced the Festival. Presumably it did not work for some reason, because it was not continued.

I think the best thing the industry can hope for is the development of a market in China ( and I don't think it is a pipe dream.)

[trakdap 390]

Different time now Breeder. The domestic market was more bouyant then.

We need to get the Aussies over here , their domestic market is much better than ours. Look at the stakes, even the outback stakes are better than here. We need to be getting them over here in their droves.

[d.burrow - Joan 224]

It is my view that combining the two sales has merit. In fact given the downward spiral of the foal crop it is very likely to happen anyway.

The point that you would have a bigger buying bench is very valid.

I for one would appreciate it [going forward] as to hang around now for the two sales with the weekend in the middle is too long a time away from my business.

If we go back to when Racing [in this Country] was in it's heyday we only had two sales - Trentham and the Waikato.

It seemed to work pretty well although I don't remember the volume of K3 type pedigrees in the Waikato Sale as there are now in the third Sale.

Maybe my memory is being selective!