Mike Dillon: Watershed moment at Karaka

Janine Dunlop of Cambridge's Phoenix Park brought 28 horses to the sales. Photo / Trish Dunell

Loosely speaking Karaka's horse sales complex is about selling dreams. The dream is about to change slightly.

This week's sales series will be looked back on as a watershed moment in the thoroughbred business.

The suddenly changing landscape will see an even bigger demand for big strong colts, extremely well bred fillies will be sought after for 100 years, but the bottom end yearlings will struggle to find a home.

We saw evidence of that this week. The end result will almost certainly see lesser numbers of bottom-end broodmares bred from in the next couple of years.

People ask you how racing is going. The only answer is that horse racing is the only game in town tied to the economy. If it's even close to being true that 85 per cent of racing's stakemoney comes directly and indirectly from the betting dollar - and it is - then any recessionary moves affect the industry and there is not a thing racing can do about it.

Rugby, cricket, rugby league, or any other sport is not similarly affected. Because of New Zealand's economy, racing's stakemoney is not where it needs to be for trainers to convince hosts of owners to race a horse.

Of course there were plenty who have - millions of dollars changed hands at Karaka this week - but slightly diminished numbers.

One positive offshoot is more and more turning to the large syndication business like David Ellis' Te Akau and Albert Bosma's Go Racing.

How others are affected:

The breeder:

Nick King of Brighthill Farm: "There is no doubt this will be a turning point. Our broodmares will go through the same process as everyone else.

"I applaud the bonus schemes like Pearl which do enormous good, but it hasn't been enough to persuade greater numbers to buy fillies. We need big numbers looking for fillies to be behind those buying the colts."

The owner: Terry Archer, who was sold on the industry when Frank Ritchie purchased for him Showella, who won the South Australian Derby and who proved top class at weight-for-age. "She was a granddaughter of Show Gate and it taught me that if you are going to buy a filly, you go to the best family you can afford because you must have that residual broodmare value." In that vein Archer in 2000 purchased Star Affair for $55,000. "She was from the great Dennis brothers southern family and was the first foal of The Grin.

"Those two families are the only ones I've made money out of." Archer sold a Danehill colt from Showella's family for A$800,000 in Sydney and got A$400,000 for an Encosta de Lago-Showella colt.

Star Affair colts have sold for $550,000 (Japan), $350,000 (South Africa) and recently Waikato Stud purchased a Star Affair filly for $600,000.

"That tells you what you need to know." Archer says his broodmare band of 12 is about to become six.

Sales preparation: Janine Dunlop, proprietor of Cambridge's Phoenix Park. Brought 28 horses to the sales on behalf of her clients. Regarded as close enough to the best in the business and unlikely to be affected by any overall drop in horse numbers.

"This year I had 29 horses to choose from 40, perhaps in the next few years a slightly reduced number to choose from." An average daily cost in sales preparation is $70 and with staff and feed there is little that can be shaved off that.

Dunlop says she likes to be fair with her clients. "Anything that sells for $29,000 or under I don't charge a commission because those people have already had a blood nose.

"From $30,000 to $99,000 I charge 1 per cent and anything over $100,000 2 per cent, because obviously someone has made money."