Day one of the sale saw Hawthorne secure Lot 47, an O'Reilly filly from the family of multiple stakes winner Starcent for $400,000. He followed that on day two with another $400,000 filly (pictured Trish Dunnell) from the recently deceased Waikato Stud champion stallion in Lot 374, a filly from the stakes winning mare Etoile Du Nord.
"O'Reilly is proving to be a tremendous broodmare sire and this type of filly is
going to be much harder to buy in the next two years given his sad demise,"
explained Hawthorne."The Last Tycoon blood crosses up well with the current Australian stallion population so we have been keen to secure as much as we can and have even been to the Northern Hemisphere looking for it.
"Our aim here was to buy the best O'Reilly fillies in the sale and I think I've done that."
Hawthorne admitted the going had been tough to buy the lots he had earmarked with a number of international buyers also keen on his choices.
"Overall I would say the sale is a little patchy however for the yearlings that we have identified it's been hard work to get the ones we want," he said.
"I probably paid overs for the Etoile Du Nord filly however I think I got the filly (Lot 47) on the first day for a lot less than I thought I might have to pay."
Hawthorne had bought a total of six lots for an aggregate $1.34 million with just a handful of yearlings left to go through the auction ring to close out the premier session of the sale. Local Cambridge trainer Tony Pike will be entrusted with guiding the racing career of the two O'Reilly fillies whilst Australian trainers Lee Freedman, David Hayes and Mark Kavanagh would also receive one or more of the remaining youngsters. – NZ Racing Desk
