Racing: Dream horse goes for $500,000

Lot 84, a Savabeel colt out of group three winner Lady Chaparral, fetched $500,000 yesterday. Photo / Trish Dunell

Cambridge Bloodstock agent Stuart Hale lay awake on the eve of New Zealand
Bloodstock's Ready to Run Sale with a Savabeel colt running through his mind and he decided then and there he was going to buy him.

Hale did just that yesterday, going to $500,000 to secure lot 84, a Savabeel colt out of Group Three winner Lady Chaparral.

"He was the best horse of the sale with the best pedigree. He jumped over my bed all night," Hale said.

"By Savabeel out of a Group-winning High Chaparral mare, where can you go wrong?"
The colt's new owner, Wong Shing Ngai of Regency Stables, resides in Hong Kong and that is where the colt's future lies after an initial stint with Cambridge trainer Brendon Hawtin, who was suitably impressed with the colt. "He's an outstanding colt with a great pedigree," Hawtin said. "He was the pick of the sale for us.

"We had a budget to spend and were willing to go a little bit higher if we had to. We're just rapt for the owner, he's had success with purchases in the past and no doubt this will be another one."

Hale said he was given orders by his long-standing client to secure the best colt of the sale and he believes he has delivered on that.

"The minute he walked out of the box I said this is the one," Hale said. "Mr Wong told me to buy the best colt of the sale and he was the best.

"He had the pedigree and he had the look. He vetted beautifully and I think he's an exciting horse.

"He's got a good attitude and he's a real athlete. I wasn't going to leave here without buying him."

Hale said the Savabeel colt, prepared for the sale by Ohukia Lodge for Waikato Stud's Garry Chittick, will follow a similar path to Regency Bo Bo, another horse Hale bought for Wong at New Zealand Bloodstock's 2015 Yearling Sale.

"He'll stay here and trial. He will do exactly the same programme as Regency Bo Bo, a Denman I paid $400,000 for," Hale said.

"He'll go up to Hong Kong as a private purchase griffen, I think he can be a special horse."

- NZ Racing Desk