By Mike Dillion
Manila racing manager Tictic Trinidad's life came before his eyes when his cellphone died at Karaka last night.
He was $3 million into a dramatic adrenalin-charged international telephone bidding duel at the time.
And only minutes away from making history.
Trinidad had been receiving bidding instructions from his boss, fabulously wealthy industrialist Eduardo Conjuangco, in the battle to buy the Zabeel-Diamond Lover colt, regarded as the finest individual produced for sale in New Zealand.
Trinidad eventually re-established phone contact with Manila, but by then he had guaranteed he had shattered the New Zealand record price by a staggering $2 million, putting up $3.6 million for the colt..
Not a drop of adrenalin was left at Karaka after Conjuangco outgunned Dubai's Nasser Abdulla Hussain Lootah in a fierce battle that had the heads of the horse industry on their feet at fever pitch.
Even the normally unflappable Sir Patrick Hogan, as vendor, said he couldn't believe the frenzy and intensity of the battle among two of the biggest players in the horse game.
Nor could he believe the $3.6 million.
When the horse walked into the ring Sir Patrick said he was not even sure the Zabeel colt would exceed the previous record of $1.6 million his Zabeel-Eight Carat colt brought at the same sale two years earlier.
Ten minutes later the representives of the two buyers were also struggling to accept the dollars had got so massive.
Trinadad said his buyer could not have gone further.
Hussain Lootah's representative at Karaka, Dr Shalabh Kumar Sahu, said his original budget had been exceeded by a million dollars.
Sahu sat in the pressroom with Gai Waterhouse on the phone to Dubai, while husband Robbie stood outside and lodged the bids.
The bidding opened at $800,000 and Graeme Rogerson and Eric Watson and one other bidder dropped out at around $1.65m.
Then the two main camps set about each other with all the ferocity of a heavyweight title fight, or should that these days read a middleweight fight.
In increments of $50,000 and $100,000 the two camps exchanged bids until Sahu and the Waterhouses put their hands up at $3.5 million as their last bid.
"It was a horse we simply had to have," said Gai Waterhouse, in surprisingly good spirits considering she had just lost the one horse of her career that she really wanted.
And she came close to getting him, even after the buidding stopped.
Minutes after the sale Trinidad said the horse would be trained by either Waterhouse or Melbourne's Lee Freedman.
Fifteen minutes later Freedman said he had received a phone call which led him to believe he would definitely be training the colt.
Conjuangco has 40 horses in work with Freedman and 20 with Waterhouse.
He is the boss of San Miguel beer which has underwritten for the first time the huge money behind Randwick's Easter race meeting.
He also has a massive investment in the Australian thoroughbred industry through Gooree Stud in New South Wales.
Conjuangco flew into Auckland in his private jet last Friday, inspected Cambridge Stud's draft and left Trinidad here to buy the Diamond Lover colt.
Sir Patrick, rarely outsmarted, said he was completely fooled by the intentions of the two main players.
"Normally I know who is going to bid.
"Two years ago I could have told you beforehand all eight players in the Eight Carat colt, but these two played it very close to the chest.
"I genuinely had no idea."
Hogan rated the colt the best on type he had bred at Cambridge Stud.
"The other thing I was delighted about was when the massive applause went up when he was sold he didn't turn a hair.
"I was worried he would injury himself at that point."
Sir Patrick said the moment was his greatest in his involvement with horses.
Trinidad said it was also his.
Centainly better than when his cellphone call dropped out.
*The average price of the sale, with one day to go, is $122,189, well up on the $94,000 from last year.
Racing: Colt goes for record $3.6m after battle
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