NEW Zealand Bloodstock’s National Yearling sale closed on Sunday with the one-day Festival sale bringing down the curtain on six days of sales that grossed NZ$85,648,400 for the 960 yearlings that sold.

The leading buyer across the National Yearling Sales series for the 11th consecutive year was Te Akau Racing’s David Ellis who outlaid $5,067,500 for 20 yearlings, whilst Team Rogerson bought the most, taking home 22 yearlings for $2,339,500. Overall 578 yearlings were bought by the domestic market which represented 41% of the gross, whilst Australian buyers purchased 239 horses for $30,487,450, or 36% of the total spend for the combined sale.

New Zealand Bloodstock’s three-day Karaka 2016 Select sale ended last Friday making substantial gains on last year’s figures with the average of NZ$57,734 up 23%, the median of $47,500 up 36%, and the aggregate of $26,326,700 up 44%, albeit for 65 more horses sold.

“We were confident we could have a good Select sale off the back of a superb Premier sale but these results have been better than we ever imagined,” said NZB managing director Andrew Seabrook.

“A true reflection of how strong the sale was is the fact that the median was higher than last year’s average.” The top lot was the Showcasing colt out of the Fusaichi Pegasus mare, My Other Woman, who sold for $220,000. The colt was bought for Ascot Farm with Bruce Harvey indicating that the plan was to take the colt to the NZB Ready to Run Sale in November.