The success of former colt syndicate horses such as King Of Sparta will only fuel a surge in demand by Australian buyers for elite second-hand racing stock, with Newgate Managing Director Henry Field predicting the local market will match Hong Kong investment in the near future.

While Newgate sold out of King Of Sparta last year, with a Yarraman Park-led syndicate opting to race him on as a gelding, there is not a hint of regret for Field, who said the Newgate/China Horse Club colts fund remains focussed only on finding future stallions.

In fact, what King Of Sparta’s success has done is keep Field’s phone busy this week with enquiries about other top-quality racing stock the colts syndicate may be looking to on-sell in the near future.

“With the Newgate/CHC colts syndicate, we are scanning the yearling market every year for really top-class colts and our model is, if they aren’t going to make a stallion at Newgate, to sell them lightly raced,” he told TDN AusNZ.

“There’s great opportunity for people to buy our colts and geldings off us because we are starting out buying a terrific product, we are looking after them really well and we are offering them when they are lightly raced.”

King Of Sparta has quickly become a poster boy for that approach, with the one-time $700,000 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale graduate set to be sold to Hong Kong before Arthur and Harry Mitchell of Yarraman Park came calling.

“We were looking at selling him to Hong Kong for a good robust Hong Kong figure and the Mitchells, who owned the mother and the father, decided they were happy to buy the horse and race him domestically. They were happy to pay ‘Hong Kong money’ to do so,” Field said.

“China Horse Club, the Grants and the Lowes decided to stay in and race the horse and he’s now one of the good up-and-coming horses in the country.”

To read the full article, please follow the link below.

https://www.tdnausnz.com.au/edition/2022-01-21/aussie-buyers-surge-in-search-of-next-king-of-sparta