Nutrien Equine announce stakes increases for 2024 sales series

Tis the season to be jolly and a recent agreement between Harness Racing Victoria and Nutrien Equine comes with it the promise of some much-needed good news.

At the forefront of the agreement was Mark Barton, Nutrien Equine’s manager who having commenced his Agency career in 1987, with Dalgety Farmers Ltd, has remained with the company for the past 37 years, throughout the various ownership and name changes.

In 2008 with the assistance of Charlie Maher & Jimmy Matthews, Barton introduced the Nutrien organisation to the Australian performance horse market, which now sees the company involved in the sale of around 1,500 performance horses annually.

In 2020 he assisted the Nutrien Equine team’s entry into the Australian Standardbred market with 300 yearlings catalogued for their first sale in Oakland’s Junction Victoria in April 2021.

Three years on, Barton is ready to lead the Nutrien team into their fourth edition of a Standardbred sale.

“We understood from the outset that we know how to sell, we know the process of running and conducting equine sales which we have performed for over 16 years now, along with all other forms so livestock,” said Barton.

“But understanding something that is a fully regulated industry like racing and understanding the details around a race series like we are coordinating has been the learning curve for us.

“The big thing I suppose has been the feedback from the industry about the need for transparency about what the prize pool should be each year. Our approach has been whatever we get we would like to put as much as we can back,” he said.

Adding to this year’s series is a 30% increase in prize money to $1,250,000 with all races receiving a prize boost for the 3^rd sales series. The two-year-old pacers for both fillies and colts will now compete for an impressive $250,000 in the final, with the three-year-old pacers seeing a 50% increase from $100,000 to $150,000. Proudly supported and sponsored by Alabar and Woodlands Stud.

“We are in a position now where we have gone from $965,000 in the prize pool to $ 1.25 million year on year because we did have a big catalogue of horses to sell last year which has allowed us to put more back in. People who have already bought from us are benefitting from that decision. The 3YOs are an example where they were meant to be racing for $100,000, that figure has now been lifted to $150,000.

“The 2YOs that people bought earlier in the year would have assumed they were $150-175k, they are actually going to race for $250,000 this year. We have also left in reserve for the babies that were bought this year is the guarantee they will still chase their $100,000 minimum as a 3YO in two years’ time,” he said.

On top of the aforementioned boost to the pacing divisions, the 2024 Nutrien Trotting series will also see fantastic prize money on offer with the two-year-old Trotters now competing for $75,000 each, whilst the three-year-olds will see an increase from $125,000 to $150,000, making it one of the richest single sex trotting races in the southern hemisphere. Again we add thanks and appreciation to our trotting series sponsor Haras Des Trotteurs for the support from day one.

All heats for the trotters will be held at Melton on Friday 12th April, along with the Victorian Pacing heats. NSW will also host Pacing heats for both two & three-year-olds, whilst Queensland will host heats for the two-year-old pacing colts and fillies. The Queensland heats are planned to be run on Tuesday 12^th March 2024, while the NSW heats will be run on Tuesday 8th April.

While this will no doubt be music to the ears of those who have supported the company as buyers and owners of Nutrien-eligible stock, consignors of yearlings have to be encouraged by what they have seen from the company today. A growth mindset coupled with the all-important ability to listen to industry stakeholders has the company firmly in the driver’s seat when it comes to establishing itself as the premiere player in the Standardbred sales market.

“We found the support from some of the key breeders in the country has been very positive,” said Barton.

“We have actually gone from 300 to 200 horses in Melbourne which is a really sensible number. We are probably back from 230 to 160 in Sydney, 120 to 70 in Brisbane and probably around 90 in Bathurst which is a great regional sale that gets terrific local support. I think the numbers across the board are back to more realistic levels given the economic climate we find ourselves in as a sport.

“We have some highlight horses from some wonderful mares with full or half siblings to very well-performed horses. The quality in the catalogue is terrific across all the states, and while it is back around 25-30% on numbers, I think a lot of that is reflected in the tail more than the top end of the book,” he said.

One of the minor bug bears of those closely associated to the yearling sales sector was the functionality of the Nutrien website comparatively to what they had come to expect from the platforms of their competitors.

Barton and his team have taken this feedback on the chin and have worked hard to address some of the issues and concedes there is still work to be done in that sphere.

“We have worked really hard to get the basics right and our developers have worked hard to make the website a lot more functional and being able to sort by a few different metrics. Where we need to improve next is the results functions, but we are listening to industry feedback to continue to evolve. It will allow both the media and participants to dissect the sale which is what they expect and what we are aiming to achieve,” he said.

Barton’s team have worked round the clock to ensure that physical copies of the catalogue are published and distributed to letterboxes in a timely fashion and expects the standardbred community to have an early Christmas present delivered in the very short term.

“We expect to see the physical catalogues out over the next week or so. The Brisbane catalogue is out being a stand-alone sale and we wanted it to be there for the Interdominion final this weekend.

“I think it’s also important to note for our supporters that we are going to ramp up our efforts this year in terms of lifting the buying bench and that means obviously doing more advertising both domestically and internationally, especially in New Zealand where trainers and owners are having some success at our sales.

“We have an obligation to our consignors to do more in that respect and I think they will see a more proactive response from us in that capacity over the next few months,” he said.

Of note for the 2024 Nutrien Standardbred Sale is the change back to Albion Park for the Queensland leg of the sales series with the Ladbrokes Sunshine Stars sale starting the 2024 series on Sunday 11th February.

The second sale will be the Sydney sale which has moved back one week to coincide with the weekend of the Miracle Mile. 2024 will again see a great weekend for both sales and racing with the sale set to get underway on Sunday 10th March at the Inglis Riverside Stables complex.

The annual Bathurst sale will be conducted in the 1st weekend of the annual Bathurst Gold Crown Carnival with the sale to be held on Sunday 24th March.

The Nutrien team have had positive feedback on the availability of stables at the complex this year and are planning to offer the same opportunity to vendors for 2024.

The Melbourne sale will round off the 2024 series running in conjunction with their 2024 race series that will be held on Saturday night 13th April.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink