Again the old adage rings true " the harder you work the luckier you get". That's certainly the case in most areas of life however it is a factual comment in the highly competitive world of the thoroughbred industry.
On Day 1 of the 2014 Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale, our countless hours of due diligence procedures have paid handsome dividends, when we struck early for what we considered was one of the standout colts in the sale.
We came, we saw and we conquered.
We arrived in Melbourne with the view of adding 2 or 3 new yearlings to our 2014 yearling purchases. Having already secured 11 of the highest quality yearlings ( Magic Millions (9) and Inglis Classic (2)) , we certainly were not interested in anything other than the the best of the best at value. Aware that the Easter yearling sale is only weeks away unless these horses we spectacular, we simply were not interested.
We have inspected 161 yearlings in total since arriving at the sale grounds. These were the yearlings that had met our stringent buying criteria on the strength of their genetic pedigree. Over several days of assessments, we reduced that list to a minimal 26 for inspection by our veterinarian, Dr John Walker.
This was further reduced to 22 to be advanced for X-ray inspection.
We lost 4 at this stage who failed x-ray based upon defects and we subsequently lost another based upon that horse becoming ill.
That has left us with a short list of just 17 yearlings considered as acceptable to be owned by Dynamic Syndications to pass on to our clients.
On Day 1, 4 of these yearlings were offered for sale. We secured the first lot and were the direct under bidder on the other 3 lots. However these other lots were fully priced and we were not prepared to pay over our ceiling price. They simply no longer represent value.
So we closed Day 1 having secured a wonderful colt by Australia's undisputed King of Sires REDOUTE'S CHOICE from the mare ZAPURPLE a Gr3 winning daughter over 2500m by the Champion Sire ZABEEL. She also ran 3rd in a Gr2 and 4th in the Gr1 Oaks.
Our colt was her second foal. Her first is a 2yo colt also by Redoute's Choice which sold for $175,000 at the 2013 Easter Sale to Swettenham Stud. ZAPURPLE is a 3/4 sister to Champion Singapore colt FLYING FULTON 13 wins up to 1900m including 6 wins at stakes level.
ZAPURPLE is a daughter of stakes winning mare PURPLE GROOVE, a Winner of 6 races, 3 times stakes placed and twice 4th at Gr1 level. PURPLE GROOVE is a 1/2 sister to the dam of stakes winners TAIKUN, SUPER GROOVE and SP Boogaloo.
PURPLE GROOVE is a daughter of Gr3 winner and stakes placed IRISES who also ran 4th in the Gr1 Blue Diamond.
This is such a strong pedigree with a A +++ pedigree rating and a Best Of Sale Rating Score of 1.5 which placed him in our evaluation score of the Top 3 colts at the sale.
We did not consider we could be fortunate enough to buy him as we rated the value of this yearling significantly higher that the purchase price we secured him for.
However in our opinion he suffered 2 disadvantages. Firstly he was in the first 30 minutes of the sale which is a bad time for vendors as the market has not established any rhythm or consistency. The second reason is that VOBIS horses are highly regarded in the state of Victoria and those not registered for VOBIS suffer in popularity. We had done our homework and knew that despite the pedigree page not saying the colt was eligible, in actual fact, he is eligible and only needs to be paid up for the scheme, which we intend to do.
Being passed on physical inspection and X-ray by our veterinarian, along with having a wonderful pedigree which sees him having directly descended from 3 stakes winners in a row and having a superb A+++ pedigree score and a Best Of Sale Score of 1.5 which ranks him in the top 3 colts in the catalogue, all points suggest an exceptional chance of racetrack success.
Further highlighted by the fact their have been 13 stakes winners to date whilst the DANEHILL over ZABEEL cross has produced 54 Stakes Winners.We were delighted to have purchased him for just $80,000 + GST.
The sale closed on Day 1 after 150 lots were catalogued with the average at $80,778 and a median price of $60,000.
We have 9 lots of interest on Day 2.