For as long as harness racing has been in existence in New Zealand, the industry has been selling its racing stock to overseas buyers.
As a result, we have sold a reasonable percentage of our better racemares to Australia and North America over a long period and it has always acted as a drag on the development of the breed in New Zealand.
One only has to look through any Australian Yearling catalogue and you will find a lot of the maternal families originated in New Zealand.
For a longtime now New Zealand breeders have been bringing some of our better bred and performed mares back from North America but it is only in recent times that New Zealand breeders have really turned their attention to New Zealand mares based in Australia.
More and more New Zealand bred mares with good times and money besides their names are making their way home and their progeny are finding their way back into our yearling sales catalogues.
One of the more recent success stories from the mares returning home is La Jaconde 1:59.2 ($153,285) who under the care of Tony Dickinson of Alta Breeding fame has already produced the smart two and three year old in Alta Orlando 1:56.2 ($173,486)
One of the mares brought back from Australia who has the first of her progeny entered at this years Australasian Classic Yearling Sale at Karaka on February 22nd is Racketeers Girl 1:54.8 ($86,545) who has a Rocknroll Hanover colt selling as Lot 79
Like La Jaconde, Racketeers Girl took her time and money in Perth and was placed at Group 3 level there so was a handy racemare.
A lot of this family seem to have been sold into Perth in the last ten years with her half brother Bettor Dreams 1:54.6 ($186,952) doing a great job there while other close relatives to have excelled in the west include Dartmoor 1:55.8 ($427,361) and J Walker 1:58.2 ($176,441).
The buying bench from Western Australia has been getting bigger and stronger at both New Zealand sales in recent years and to have four well performed horses on the catalogue page who have performed at a high level in that state must be a big bonus for prospective buyers from Perth.
Lot 79 in Racketeers Boy has the added bonus of being an athlectic looking individual with a touch of class about him so one would expect that there will a fair bit of interest in him from Western Australia at Karaka on February 22nd.
Harnesslink Media