A Frankel colt from Our Echezeaux (Zabeel) made $1.30 million to light up the Karaka sale ring at the NZB Premier yearling sale on Tuesday.  Offered by Pencarrow Stud, he stole the show with Adrian Nicoll of BBA Ireland landing the final blow after a bidding duel with Peter Moody.

A syndicate of high profile international identities comprising Nicoll, Coolmore Stud, Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa, Niarchos family and Apollo Ng combined to purchase the sale topper.

“The two best Frankels I’ve seen have been this colt and the filly at Goffs that sold for 1.70 million euros,” Nicoll said.  “He’s a lovely horse, he’s got immense presence and we started trying to make this happen about three days ago.”

The $1.3m colt helped drive significant increases to the aggregate, average, median and clearance rate.  With 316 horses sold on Monday and Tuesday, the aggregate soared 24% to $55.68 million.

The average price climbed 17% to $176,226 and the clearance rate improved 3 points to 78%.

Another strong sign was the number of horses sold for over $500,000 with 10 horses reaching or surpassing that mark, compared with just 3 last year.  Further to that, there were 45 horses sold for $300,000 or more, up from 29 last year.

Also creating headlines was David Ellis of Te Akau Racing as he became the leading buyer for a record 11th consecutive year at the Karaka Premier Sale.  Ellis purchased 17 horses for a total of $4.77 million topped by the $775,000 colt by Savabeel.

Just before missing out on the top lot of the day, Peter Moody struck by purchasing the second highest price of the Premier Sale, the Savabeel – O’Reilly Rose colt for $825,000.  He is the highest priced Savabeel to ever be sold at auction and moody bought him in partnership with First Light Racing and Paul Willets.

Savabeel grossed $11.54 million which is over 20% of the total aggregate.  His home base Waikato Stud was the leading vendor by aggregate for the third consecutive year, selling 45 horses for $8.25 million.

The leading vendor by average was Curraghmore with 18 horses sold at an average $268,333.  Top price of $510,000 was given by David Ellis for the Fastnet Rock colt out of Myrrh (Nassipour).

FRANKEL – OUR ECHEZEAUX COLT