Photo: Trish Dunell
Prima Park has accrued an enviable record with their New Zealand Bloodstock Ready to Run Sale graduates, and farm principal Kelly Van Dyk is hoping they can add another to that list from their 2024 draft.
2019 Hong Kong Champion Sprinter Beat The Clock, 2016 Horse of the Year Debt Collector, and Gr.1 Queensland Derby (2400m) hero Warmonger sit atop their honour roll of Ready to Run Sale graduates, and Van Dyk believes plenty of quality is set to come out of their draft from last week’s sale, where they had a 100 percent clearance rate.
“The most important thing is they go on and win races, so hopefully there is another one in there,” she said.
“We sold 100 percent of our draft and that was our goal. We are really happy to clear the decks and everything found a really good home.
“We had some really good pinhooks. The Exceed and Excel colt (lot 333) made $370,000 and is going to Hong Kong, we were really happy with that result.
“He is a beautiful colt who breezed up really well. Everyone commented on how good his action looked. He is going to Cody Mo (trainer) in Hong Kong, who is training in his second season there. It is nice to see him go to an up-and-coming trainer there.”
Van Dyk was also pleased with the six-figure sales of several others in her draft.
“The Toronado (gelding, lot 280) made $260,000 and was bought by Go Racing, and he is going to be trained by Chris Waller,” she said.
“We had the two fillies that sold well. The Contributer (lot 116) was a $10,000 purchase for a client and made $100,000, while his other filly (Proisir, lot 157) he paid $40,000 for and she sold last week for $280,000.
“We are really happy to get them into good stables where they are going to get every opportunity as we want to see them go on and win races.”
While pleased with her sale results, Van Dyk said there won’t be much time to celebrate, with the farm already in full swing with yearling sale preparation, on top of their pre-training and training commitments.
“We are prepping yearlings at the moment. We have only got six for Book 1 (at Karaka), but six really nice horses,” she said.
“Our pre-training and training operation continues but come January we will be looking for the next lot of horses to go to the ready to runs. We try and get around to most of the sales and pick up a few. We will be going back to Australia and Karaka, and then go through the process of breaking them in and preparing them for the sale.”
While the sales are a large portion of Prima Park’s business, Van Dyk also runs a boutique training arm, and is looking forward to lining up one of her team at Te Aroha on Wednesday.
Three-year-old filly Reggae Queen will have her third start in the Entain/NZB Insurance Pearl Series (1400m), and Van Dyk is confident of a bold showing from the daughter of Exceedance.
“Her last run (fourth over 1200m at Pukekohe) was super,” she said. “We rode her back, but didn’t intend on getting that far back. The way that she was coming home was really encouraging.
“The step up to 1400m should be ideal and her work has been very good since that race, she came through it super.
“I am expecting her to run really well, I think she is a really nice filly in the making. We had a few little niggles to iron out with her, but I think we are on the right track now.”
