Sunday’s Festival Sale concluded the NZB National Yearling Series with an Iffraaj colt topping trade at $85,000.

Hong Kong agent Paul Chow purchased the final-session leader who is out of O’Reilly mare Skimmio.  “He was a little bit over my authorised budget but he’s one of the four horses that were on my list,” he said at Karaka.  “We have bought 11 horses so far and they’re not necessarily going back to Hong Kong.  We will wait and see how they develop.”

The Festival Sale average improved slightly on last year, finishing at $14,670 at a clearance rate of 71%.

Overall, the Premier, Select and Festival Sale returns pleased NZ Bloodstock.  “It has been a very solid week of selling, with a strong buying bench demonstrating good demand for the horses on offer,” NZB director Petrea Vela said.  “Spirited competition right throughout the week ensured we posted figures in line with last year.”

Among the week’s highlights was the 6% growth in the Australian spend up to $24.45 million and the strong support from both Hong Kong ($10.04m) and Singapore ($2.37m).

The leading buyer for the Sales Series was David Ellis’s Te Akau Racing, purchasing 26 horses for $3.80 million.  The leading vendor overall was Waikato Stud with 63 horses sold for $8.48 million.