Sydney sale a wake up call for breeders

This years round of major harness racing sales in Australasia is all but over with just the Brisbane leg of the Australian Pacing Gold sales to go this weekend.

Both the Melbourne leg of the APG sale and the Australasian Classic at Karaka would have been happy with their results but Sydney was way off the pace and Christchurch had more than its share of issues as well.

Now the Sydney sale last weekend was the last of the big four sales to go this year and as such you would expect the numbers not to be as strong as the other three sales that proceeded it.

Last cab off the rank and the last bite at the buyer's bench was always going to make this the hardest sale for the vendors but I don't think anyone saw the carnage coming.

The bald figures don't do justice to what was a major setback for the growth of the Sydney sale in the future.

As someone who sat through the whole sale and watched developments unfold, the problems were multiple and not easily solved.

The biggest was undoubtedly the lack of stock by the hottest sires in the marketplace at the moment.

Thirteen Somebeachsomewheres and nine Bettor's Delights which together made up just over ten per cent of the total offering was nowhere near enough to cover a catalogue full of stallions who are getting a pass mark at best in the marketplace.

Surprisingly Art Major whose stock continue to excel on both sides of the Tasman was given a tough ride in the ring for a stallion of his achievements, averaging less than half what he did at Karaka in Auckland.

As you can see from the averages printed below, the Bettor's Delights and the Somebeachsomewheres held the sale together with averages in the range of where they have been at other sales this year.

It is the backup players in the stallion offering who dragged the sale down.

The demand for quite a few of them was just not there and the sale average went west accordingly.

Another major issue that was apparent from early on in the day was the level of presentation was not up to the standard required for too many lots for a premier sale such as this.

The cut off point for acceptance needs to be tougher because badly presented yearlings will drag a sale down very quickly.

On top of that to see vendors roping yearlings in the laneway which leads to the sale ring and not successfully one might add was embarrassing to put it mildly.

If they are not educated to lead by sale day, what in heavens name are they doing there?  

At the end of the day you could suggest that the Sydney sale this year was the victim of a 'perfect storm" but the overall results of the sale were exacerbated by a lot of things over which APG and the vendors did have control.

When you see the overall average drop 10% and the colt average a huge 17.3%, things have to change and quickly.

AVERAGES          

                                                   Number sold                Average

Bettor's Delight                                 9                             $65,555

Somebeachsomewhere                    12                           $51,666

Art Major                                           20                           $32,650

Rock N Roll Heaven                          16                           $ 27,281

Mach Three                                       7                             $24,928

Roll With Joe                                    8                              $19,750

Sportswriter                                     15                            $17,166

Shadow Play                                    9                              $14,777 

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