KEY POINTS:
When Lot 137 got to the auction circle at the Karaka Yearling Sales, all eyes were on David Ellis.
Sure enough, when the bidding hit $1.3 million in the hushed pavilion his was the name on the auctioneer's lips.
The owner of Te Akau Stables has bought a million-dollar horse for each of the past four years.
Last year the Waikato syndicator splashed out $2.2 million for a Stravinsky colt.
Yesterday's was another Stravinsky colt, the first one out of Melbourne Cup-winning mare Ethereal from Pencarrow Stables, where Mr Ellis has spent more than $6 million since 2003.
After the auction, Mr Ellis said he had been keen on the colt since soon after it was born.
"I see a lot of his mother in this colt. I saw him when he was a few days old and I've been back to Pencarrow every month since then. I'm thrilled to get him, because there are a lot of overseas people here and you can never be sure until you hear the fall of the hammer whether you will get them."
Down at the Pencarrow Stud stable area, Leslie and Aussie Browne were quick to take the name label from Lot 137's door as a trophy to mark their share of the colt. Mr Browne, a pharmacist from Christchurch, also had a 10 per cent share in last year's $2.2 million colt, so considered the Ethereal colt a bit of a bargain.
"It was cheaper than we thought, so we're very happy," Mrs Browne said. "We like the lineage, there's a proven track record on both sides, and we like Stravinsky because that's what we put money on last year."
Mr Ellis said the interest in joining the syndicate of owners for the colt was high and he was yet to sort out the 10 who would get a 10 per cent share in it, for $130,000 each. He said existing clients would get first priority.
The thrill of today will belong to Luke Simpson, a stable worker at Cambridge Stud who has been picked to lead the second million-dollar-plus horse into the ring.
Sir Patrick Hogan's Cambridge Stud will auction a colt sired by Zabeel, and the first to be auctioned out of Sunline, a mare who won 32 of her 48 starts for a record A$11,351,607 ($12,604,506) earnings and was three-time Australian horse of the year.
Many studs use their most senior workers to lead the high-value horses for an auction. But 22-year-old Simpson said he was looking forward to his time in the ring, which his parents were travelling from Hamilton to watch.
"I don't really get anxious about it any more, but I probably will think about it with him tomorrow, because I haven't put a horse like him through the ring before. But he's a lovely horse to handle, very calm and relaxed and takes everything in his stride. He's nosy and inquisitive."
International buyers - especially from Hong Kong and Australia - also had the chequebooks out and spent $7.8 million on 60 of the 150 horses sold on the first day of the sales.
The Hong Kong Jockey Club, Robert Roulston Bloodstock from Australia and Badgers Bloodstock from England bought several horses apiece.
* The Karaka record is $3.6 million for a 2003 Zabeel colt.
