Trotters spark big interest at NZB Standardbred National Yearling Sales

By Michael Guerin

There was a time when a draft full of trotters would have been a potential disaster for a vendor at a harness racing yearling sale.

That won’t be the case for Logan Hollis and Shane Robertson at NZB Standardbred's National Yearling Sale at Karaka tomorrow.

The boutique sale, with 133 lots catalogued, is traditionally the strongest sale of its type in the Southern Hemisphere and last year the average topped $62,000, remarkable when you think it was around $10,000 just 20 years ago.

That enormous growth of value has been driven by the success New Zealand-bred horses had in Australia’s major races until very recently while many of Australia’s big-spending buyers seem to like buying here.

But of all the surprising trends to emerge from our two standardbred sales days (the other is on Wednesday in Christchurch) the mammoth increase in prices for well-bred trotters has been one of the most dramatic.

And that could reach a new high at Karaka.

Trotting, as opposed to pacing, was struggling in both New Zealand and even more so in Australia just 15 years ago and the gait was even dropped from the Inter Dominions.

But it has undergone a remarkable renaissance - stake money is up, the trotting product can be exported to Europe whereas betting agencies there won’t broadcast pacing races, and a dedicated band of trotting zealots have imported high class mares and semen from world class stallions.

That happy set of circumstances could reach their zenith when two yearlings by one of North America’s best trotting stallions Walner go under the hammer on a day stacked with beautifully-bred trotting yearlings.

“We have 12 in our draft and nine of them are trotters,” says Pukekohe preparer Logan Hollis.

“Most of them are for Pat Driscoll [Victorian-based] and there really is some beautiful stock.

“We have a colt and a filly by Walner while we have a full brother to Just Believe.

“They have been popular and the two Walners will make good money but it is hard to say how much.

“Who knows, the Americans could get involved and then things could really skyrocket.”

Walner stands at US$50,000 in the US this season and has had yearlings sell for US$1 million with Hollis saying the quality of the trotters in their draft has even created interest among trainers who would usually only look at pacing-bred yearlings.

“But we have some lovely ones of those too.”

Breckon Farms also take some strong trotting-bred youngsters to today’s sale, including a brother to our best young male trotter Meant To Be.

“We have a really strong draft including a couple of first sale yearlings out of Group 1-winning pacing mares,” says their owner Ken Breckon.

“It is always important to have that new blood coming through and this is the first draft we have had that really shows the benefit of the enormous development at our farm.”

Woodlands Stud is the other huge vendor who sells at Karaka and their drafts sees a real standout in Lot 46, a colt by Captaintreacherous out of one of New Zealand’s greatest ever mares in Adore Me.

Adore Me’s five foals to have raced have all won and the family is one of the most fashionable in Australasian harness racing so the colt it certain to make big money. 

The sale starts at 1pm at the Karaka sale complex on Monday.