With New Zealand Bloodstock’s Karaka May Sale cancelled due to the COVID-19 lockdown, a weanling only sale will be held in its place on Gavelhouse Plus in June.

The National Weanling Sale will be open to all vendors and allow those who normally trade at the Karaka May Sale an opportunity to trade young stock within a timely manner.

With the sale running under NZB terms and conditions, all weanlings offered at the sale will be eligible for the lucrative Karaka Million Series featuring two NZ$1 million races available for graduates as 2 and 3-year-olds, plus the NZ$100,000 CollinsonForex Karaka Cup for the duration of their career.

“With the practical restrictions we’re currently facing as an industry, I’m pleased that NZB have made the decision to offer a weanling sale via their new online platform Gavelhouse Plus,” Curraghmore’s Gordon Cunningham said.

“I can confirm that Curraghmore will be entering our usual quality draft. I strongly encourage all vendors to support this important and timely sale with good stock and make it a success.”

Brighthill Farm’s Nick King is also looking forward to the new platform.

“Gavelhouse Plus opens up opportunities for buyers in an evolving digital market and this will be a really great asset for them to utilise,” he said.

“It is a good sale for those who want well-presented, quality weanlings for pinhooking, particularly for the upcoming yearling sale.

Entries for the National Weanling Sale in conjunction with Gavelhouse Plus remain open to all vendors until closing on Wednesday, June 10. Bidding will take place from Thursday, June 11 with the first lot counting down from NZDT5pm on Sunday, June 21.

Gavelhouse.com are awaiting confirmation around government Alert levels to confirm the ability to carry out in person inspections, transport options and vet services available in terms of pre-purchase exams and post-sale scopes. There will be more clarity around this in due course.

Latest from the UK

Hoping Derby stays at home

Courtesy of TDN Europe

Ryan Moore, twice a winner of the G1 Investec Derby aboard Workforce (GB) (King’s Best {USA}) in 2010 and Ruler Of The World (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) in 2013, said he hopes the Blue Riband, delayed this year because of coronavirus complications, can remain at its historic home at Epsom Downs.

The Jockey Club Racecourses announced earlier this month that its Guineas and Derby Festivals would be postponed indefinitely and last weekend the British Horseracing Authority revealed that the Guineas’ could take place in early June and the Derby and Oaks late June.

Whether the second round of Classics can be staged at Epsom will depend upon coronavirus health and safety restrictions.

“It’s a tough situation for everyone, we just have to make the best of it and hopefully we’ll get everything moving again at some stage,” Moore said on the Betfair Betting Podcast.

“I wouldn’t like to see the Derby run anywhere else; hopefully we can run the Classics in their rightful places. If the dates have to be moved, then that’s the way it will have be, but I very much hope to see Epsom run the Derby.”

Closed doors experience

Moore rode at select meetings in Hong Kong behind closed doors earlier this season, and shed some light on why that is a process that works in that nation.

“It’s very unique in Hong Kong, all the horses are trained in the same location, and the jockeys and trainers live in the same place and so do their staff,” he said.

“They put everything into a bubble and have the resources to be testing everyone very regularly and are at a massive advantage for keeping racing going on that way. Behind closed doors isn’t ideal, but if that’s what has to be done it won’t bother anyone riding.

“They’re doing it in Australia as well, again though a lot of the horses are trained on the track and it’s a very different set up to what we have in the UK, Ireland and France in regards to where horses are stabled and staff live, so we have much bigger hurdles to overcome.

“I’m sure they are looking at what they are doing in Hong Kong and Australia to keep their shows going, but it’s a lot tougher to do that here than it is in Hong Kong.

“The reality is over there they were a lot more aware of it, they’ve had to deal with SARS and the like. I think they were a bit ahead of us.”

Changing face of breeze-ups

In an ordinary year, the breeze-up consignors, just like any trainer targeting a race, would have a sale date in mind for each horse under their care and work backwards from that date in tailoring the horses’ preparation.

This year, of course, is anything but ordinary. Along with sweeping date changes to the breeze-up sales calendar, auctions have either been relocated or, in the case of the Osarus Breeze-up, will be held solely online.

Goffs UK and Arqana have taken the sensible approach of moving sales that were due to take place in England and France to Ireland, where 84 per cent of the 330 horses catalogues in those two auctions, are currently based.

On Wednesday, Tattersalls, which had already combined its Craven and Ascot Breeze-up Sales to one fixture, announced a further delay until June 23, while the Guineas Sale had already been rescheduled until July 6 and 7, and the Tattersalls Goresbridge Breeze-up Sale will, in theory at this stage, bring the curtain down on the protracted European season on July 24.

In preparation for a disrupted season, plenty of breeze-up consignors have already taken marketing matters into their own hands, presenting their horses on video via their websites and social media.

Johnny Hassett of the Bloodstock Connection has recently launched a daily video blog via his Twitter account. While acknowledging the need to sell the 20 breeze-up horses currently being prepared at his Ballyhannon House Hassett does, however, take a pragmatic view of the current situation.

“It’s all about perspective,” he says. “There are people dying around the world and, yes, my racehorse isn’t worth as much as he was when I bought him and of course I would like to get on well, but if I got my money back and was going to sales in September or October, that’s more than I had when I started.”

Wider consequences

But he warns that what happens at the sales over the next few months will have consequences for those staged later in the year.

“The money we get for these horses is going to affect everybody with a mare or a foal or yearling, or whether they are a blacksmith, an exercise rider, or vet or feed man,” Hassett says. “It is critical that the breeze-up men get on well.

“We buy more horses than Sheikh Mohammed and Coolmore put together. We buy 750 to 1000 yearlings every year and we have to. The customers who race horses don’t have to buy one. They could take a year out from the sales.”

John Cullinan, who sells breeze-up horses in conjunction with Roger Marley through their combined Church Farm and Horse Park Stud operation, is one of the leading players in the Breeze-up Consignors’ Association.

“We’re all genuinely conscious of the real world. Life has become very difficult for a lot of people, but I also think there is a genuine acknowledgement of the breeze-ups to the overall market,” he said. “We spend more than €20 million on yearlings a year so we’re significant players.”

Latest from the USA

Turfway positives

Courtesy of TDN America

A pair of workers at Turfway Park have tested positive for coronavirus in recent weeks, according to a report first published by Blood-Horse.

Turfway’s parent company Churchill Downs ended the Turfway meeting, which had been being conducted without spectators, three days earlier than scheduled last month, citing Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Healthy at Home executive order.

Churchill Downs, Inc. spokesperson Tonya Abeln confirmed to the TDN on Wednesday that the ill backstretch worker was symptomatic more than two weeks ago and was subsequently hospitalised and tested positive for COVID-19. He has not since returned to the track property.

Abeln said that Turfway has provided quarantine accommodations for two more asymptomatic backstretch workers who were believed to have been in contact with the individual who tested positive.

The first news of coronavirus positives at a Kentucky track comes as CDI attempts to co-ordinate the already delayed opening of the Churchill Downs backside, currently scheduled for April 28 and a potential start date for its spring meeting with state officials and horsemen.

Novelty fundraiser

The Battle for the Backside: Pies Against COVID-19 Sponsored by Runhappy will be raising funds for The Jockey Club Safety Net Foundation through donations surrounding a charity pie-eating contest on April 25.

All donations will benefit thoroughbred racing’s backstretch community in an effort to alleviate financial burdens incurred during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The contest, sponsored by Runhappy, Pyrois Media, and Julie Witt, will offer racing fans the chance to support any of the 10 entrants, each of whom will attempt to be the fastest pie eater of the field.