Touring over

The Southern Bred Southern Reared Yearling Tour is done and dusted for another year and harness racing owners and trainers, after casting an eye over close to seventy lots, are getting ready to bid at next weeks NZB Standardbred Sales in Christchurch.

“The weather has been fantastic and with the sun on their backs the yearlings look another ten or twenty percent better,” SBSR Chairman Mark Smith said.

Thirty potential buyers were at Arden Lodge and Shard Farm yesterday, the last two stopovers for this year’s tour.

“They’ve been impressed with the standard of our horses, can tell we’ve had a great summer and once again the tour has been a great success.”

Unfortunately Auckland owners and trainers were unable to make the trip south this year with Cyclone Gabrielle disrupting their travel plans.

“We love having the Aucklanders down here because they always buy a lot of SBSR horses. Hopefully they’ll catch up with us in Christchurch. That will make our inspection days very busy.” 

Otago trainer Graeme Anderson said he was impressed with the SBSR draft.

“The tour’s great and the vendors do a great job in preparing them. I found the ones in the south were more athletic than the yearlings in Canterbury which were a bit bulky and overfed I thought,” Anderson said.

Mark Smith is unsure of how this year’s Sale will go but is hopeful that the SBSR brand will be well represented on the leader board over all three days.

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink