Plenty of buyers but small number of horses at Durbanville sale

Lots of buyers but very few horses. That has to be the conclusion on Sunday’s Cape Racing Ready-to-Run Sale at Durbanville racecourse where just 89 lots went through the ring.

It was unfortunate that — due to adverse weather conditions — the 13 lots entered by Nadeson Park Stud had to be withdrawn, but even so it’s doubtful auctioneer Andrew Miller has ever had to offer so few horses at a SA bloodstock sale.

Happily for vendors — particularly Soetendal Estate — buyers felt they had consigned some quality two-year-olds and trainer Vaughan Marshall secured the top lot going to R1.4m for a son of his 2020 Met winner, One World.

The Milnerton trainer will be aware his acquisition is one of the 23 “added bonus” candidates on the sale, which means the owner receives another R200,000 in prize money if the colt wins as a juvenile.

Soetendal (as agent) also sold the top filly on the sale with owner Sally Arundel bidding R800,000 for a daughter of Gimmethegreenlight out of the Var mare Varsity Girl.

This lot — as well as the salestopper — resulted in Soetendal emerging top vendors with their 29 lots grossing R6.920m. The final aggregate and average figures will have pleased the Cape Racing Sales division. The aggregate was up 10,7% on 2022 at R18.670m while the average of R222,262 was 13,4% up on 12 months ago.

Other top studs which enjoyed a successful sale included Ridgemont and Klawervlei. The former sold 10 lots for R2.125m with the latter selling eight youngsters for R1.520m.

In the sires’ department, One World was the top grossing sire with five of his progeny selling for R2.030m at an average of R406,000. Not surprisingly, Gimmethegreenlight had the highest average with his three lots averaging R575,000.

Trainer Tony Peter has a big day ahead of him next Saturday when he saddles his star three-year-old, Main Defender, in the Graham Beck Stakes at Turffontein and he secured six lots at Sunday’s sale spending R890,000.

Hollywood were also keen on a number of lots and went home with five two-year-olds at a cost of R990,000.

The Frankie Dettori factor had a positive effect on Saturday’s attendance at Ascot with the Berkshire course welcoming a crowd of 30,369 compared to 23,872 in 2022.

Dettori partnered King Of Steel to victory in the grade 1 Champion Stakes, but a decision on whether the horse travels for the Breeders Cup Turf at Santa Anita on November 4 has been put on hold.

Winning trainer, Roger Varian, said: “I think we need to take stock and see how the horse is. He appears to have come out of the race physically in good shape, but he had a hard race and we can’t ignore that. We will just have to see how he is over the next week. But if we could get a good horse there, then of course he’d want to be there.”