Ready2Race stakes success beckons again for Ohukia Lodge

Cover image courtesy of Inglis

It’s a surprising fact that Cambridge-based Ohukia Lodge, set into calm and quiet country near Lake Karapiro, has only been selling since 2015. The farm’s success has been dizzying, not least for its principal, Jamie Beatson.

In a short space of time, the property sold the G1 New Zealand Derby winner Vin De Dance (NZ) (Roc De Cambes {NZ}), and its most topical of successes is Gunstock, who won the G3 Caulfield Classic last weekend, and Forgot You, a winner of the G2 Bill Stutt S. last month.

Both of these horses will line up in the G1 VRC Derby in a few weeks (Forgot You will go via the G2 Drummond Golf Vase this weekend) and, significantly, both were sold by Ohukia Lodge at last year’s Inglis Ready2Race Sale.

“It’s important to get success on the track,” Beatson said. “It makes the buyers want to come back and purchase more from us. We had a nice draft for this Sale last year, and we took 17 across for it in the end. We met the market with most of them.”

Gunstock sold to Import Racing for $135,000, a tidy return on the NZ$80,000 that Beatson paid for the horse at the New Zealand Premier Yearling Sale. Forgot You, meanwhile, sold to Busuttin Racing for $330,000. He was the fourth-highest priced lot of the Sale.

Additionally, Akahata (NZ) (Pins) emerged from the same draft, bought by Bjorn Baker and Clarke Bloodstock for $100,000 and a horse that was third to G1 JJ Atkins S. winner Converge (Frankel {GB}) in the Listed Fernhill H.

It's extraordinary success from just one draft, and, for Ohukia Lodge, it has set a benchmark.

“We’ve got five nice ones this year, and they were selected to specifically target this Sale,” Beatson said.

Supporting Sydney

Ohukia Lodge is a breeze-up vendor, pitching its tent in the 2-year-old camp with plenty of success.

This year, it has five juveniles catalogued for the Inglis Ready2Race Sale next week, with another 30 catalogued for the New Zealand Bloodstock Ready to Run Sale next month. Obviously, it’s easier to sell locally, but the farm has supported the Inglis Sale since 2018.

That year, it had a draft of four horses which was topped by the $125,000 sale of a Dissident colt. In 2019, it brought six horses across, the best of which was a So You Think (NZ) colt sold to Hong Kong for $185,000.

Last year, it was a bumper harvest with 17 horses, the highlight being Forgot You’s $330,000, and, while the draft is slimmer this year, it’s no less significant a commitment.

"Inglis are really good to deal with, and they’ve been easy all the way along,” Beatson said. “So I try to support their Sale a bit, and when COVID hit last year, I tried to do something a bit different and get the horses over there in front of the Aussies.

"It was a bit hard not being there, which is why we haven’t brought so many over this year. We would have liked to have brought more and to have been there, but hopefully there’ll be next year.”

Beatson’s five horses arrived at Warwick Farm on Tuesday. Owing to COVID, he hasn’t sent any staff from the farm, but he has a reliable network in Sydney taking care of the draft.

“It’s been a bit hard in that respect, with the staff being an issue,” Beatson said. “We’ve managed to get by but it hasn’t been easy, and it was the reason why we didn’t bring a whole heap of horses this time.”

For Waikato Stud

If the Ohukia Lodge draft is light on numbers, it’s heavy on quality.

There are three geldings and two colts by five individual sires, namely Belardo (Ire), Savabeel, Darci Brahma (NZ), Sacred Falls (NZ) and Written Tycoon.

It’s a rich and varied set of horses that targets both the short and long-course buyers, highlighted by Lot 173, a dark gelding by Savabeel that is selling on behalf of Waikato Stud.

“He’s a great type and he's a Waikato-bred horse,” Beatson said. “We’re presenting him for them, and he breezed up nicely in Cambridge.”

Lot 173 clocked 11.11s when he galloped on September 20, and he’s from the O’Reilly (NZ) mare Girls On Top (NZ). She is a city winner and half-sister to the dam of Currency (NZ) (Spinning World {USA}), who was 2005 Singapore Horse of the Year.

At the top of the page, Savabeel presents as one of the most persistent sires of winners, and his stronghold on the New Zealand Champion Sire title continued last season, his seventh all up.

Trial winner

All but two of Ohukia Lodge’s draft have breezed, and only Lot 27 by Sacred Falls and Lot 50 by Written Tycoon will gallop at the alternative session on Friday.

“The Written Tycoon won a trial here in New Zealand already,” Beatson said. “He won at Taupo last Thursday, and he’s shown us heaps. He’s pretty sharp and he’s going to run really early.”

Lot 50’s trial last week was a good one. The bay colt finished 2.0l ahead of the Burgundy (NZ) filly Maven Belle (NZ), and there’s an edge to him.

He’s the second foal from the Exceed And Excel mare Racy, which is the extended family of the Champion racehorse Encounter, a six-time Group 1 winner in Australia in the late 1990s.

Beatson purchased this colt from Maluka Thoroughbreds for $90,000 at this year’s Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale, while Racy herself was sold for the same sum by Newhaven Park to Kingstar Farm earlier this year at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale.

Glory Days

Most of the horses in Beatson’s draft have arrived at Riverside this week with plenty behind them.

They have been coaxed, cared for and educated carefully at Ohukia Lodge, which has become a trademark of every draft the farm has prepared.

“Most of these horses we’ve done a fair bit with,” Beatson said. “They’ve had three preps along the way of getting to the Sale, and they’ve been through the gates and all that. They’ll be ready to go to the trials or the races not long after they’ll be purchased.”

He mentions Lot 25 as a particularly good one.

This is a bay gelding by Darci Brahma (NZ) from Meritaggio (NZ) (Road To Rock), and he’s from the family of Champion filly Clear Rose (NZ) (Deputy Governor {USA}), who won the G1 New Zealand One Thousand Guineas and was second in the G1 New Zealand Derby.

“This colt breezed up very nicely,” Beatson said of Lot 25, who clocked 10.74s in his gallop at Cambridge’s session. “He’s a sharp sort of horse, a real neat type.”

In the same breath, he said that Lot 129, by Belardo from the Montjeu (Ire) mare Bilancia (NZ), was a very nice horse.

“He breezed up very well too,” Beatson said, speaking of the 2-year-old gelding’s 11.16s gallop. “He’s a real neat type as well, and he’s a half to a Group 1 winner in Glory Days.

"He’s a nice big horse and, being by Belardo, he’ll be a sprinter. But I’d say this horse will get a Derby trip as well. Glory Days won an Auckland Cup, so we’re hoping he’ll get over a bit of ground like her.”

Glory Days (NZ) (Red Giant {USA}) was New Zealand Champion Stayer in 2018/19. She won the G1 Auckland Cup, G2 Avondale Cup and Listed Wanganui Cup.

Lot 129 is the seventh foal from Bilancia, who is a half-sister to the stakes winner Kasumi (NZ) (Shinko King {Ire}). The gelding presents as one of the strongest prospects in the Ohukia Lodge draft.

Type to sell

Beatson is a specialist now in the breeze-up field, and he said the Ready2Race Sale suited all sorts of horses, that it wasn’t a platform for sprinters or stayers individually.

“You can get a bit of everything,” he said. “If you buy the right type to sell by the right sire, you’ve got a good chance to do well. We try to buy the right type for this Sale, a horse that’s going to make a racehorse really, and that’s what we look for to sell. We seem to find that works for us and we stick to it.”

His five horses bedded down at Riverside on Tuesday evening, handled expertly in transit by IRT. Beatson said he’d much rather be handling it all himself, but that’s life through COVID.

“It’s definitely stressful,” he said. “You send them off from the farm and they’re then out of our hands. You’ve just got to trust your staff after that, and they keep in regular contact with us. It’s just one of those things that we have to do these days.”