Per Incanto’s strong record in Hong Kong didn’t go unnoticed by Hong Kong interests on the first day of New Zealand Bloodstock’s Book 2 sale at Karaka on Wednesday.

 

The Little Avondale Stud sire has accrued an impressive strike-rate of 72 percent winners-to-runners in the Asian racing jurisdiction and that success led to plenty of interest in lot 726, the colt out of Singapore stakes winner Makkura.

 

Offered through Little Avondale’s draft, the Per Incanto colt quickly surged past the $100,000 mark before Australian bloodstock agent John Foote was able to secure him with a final bid of $160,000.

 

Foote was pleased to purchase the colt who is destined to head to Hong Kong if he shows promise as a three-year-old.

 

“Per Incanto has done well in Asia and Hong Kong, he is an underrated stallion,” Foote said. “I think Hong Kong were the underbidders. 

 

“I bought him for a Hong Kong client. He will go across to Australia and go through the system there where he will trial, if he trials well he will go to Hong Kong.”

 

The colt already has a link to Asia through the deeds of his dam and Foote believes he was value at $160,000.

 

“He is one of the better colts here today, so we thought we would have to pay that,” Foote said.

 

“The mother could run, they took her to Singapore and she did really well. 

 

Sam Williams of Little Avondale Stud has been pleased with Per Incanto’s statistics on the track and was confident the colt would sell well. 

 

“The horse had five stakes performers last week and 10 winners over an eight day period. He is having a wonderful trot and he had those two three-year-olds the other day,” he said. 

 

“You can’t do much more than win on the track and hope that the results follow through into the sales ring. 

 

“Constance Cheng owns the horse and we’ve been breeding with her in partnership and she was tickled pink with the result. 

 

“She races a lot of horses in Singapore and she was quite keen that if he didn’t make his reserve she was going to race him in Singapore. But he was pretty much on the market all the way so I was confident he was going to soar past his reserve.”

 

Foote has had plenty of success purchasing out of New Zealand Bloodstock’s sales and was pleased with his 19 purchases from the Book 1 session earlier in the week.

 

“We go to the South Island and go to all the sales and try to buy a bit of value, that is the key to it really,” he said.

 

“We bought quite a few in Book 1 and I am happy with the prices. I think $220,000 was the dearest we paid for two horses and the rest were under that. 

 

“It is pretty good really considering what the average was. We were under the average, so that was good.”