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  • 1 year ago
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00:00Dell and Kona Racing has been active at the yearling sales this year as they focus on
00:05a strategy of finding quality over quantity.
00:08Their latest stop was to Kentucky for the Keeneland September sale.
00:13I moved over from South Africa in 2020 and set up training in England.
00:18I trained in Newmarket in a phantom house stable, which is a really historic yard.
00:23This is our third year at it and it's gone really well so far.
00:28We came over here because obviously we're wanting to upgrade the whole time.
00:32Our ambition is to not grow in numbers but grow in quality.
00:37So I came here with my dad, who's pedigree to win, and Jamie Piggott.
00:44The three of us have teamed up really well.
00:45Our shortlist has been unbelievable.
00:48I think the cheapest horse off our shortlist has been about 250,000.
00:52We haven't been able to buy one off them, it's been that strong.
00:56In England, at a type of sale with this many horses, one would slip through the net.
01:01We're here, nothing slips through the net.
01:03It's been really hard to buy.
01:05Just the sheer number of horses, like I said, and their organisation, it's really organised
01:09and streamlined.
01:10It runs really well.
01:11This is my first trip to Keeneland.
01:13It's been eye-opening.
01:14It's been really good.
01:15I'll definitely be back next year.
01:18One of the mornings we went out and spent it with Wesley Ward and Andrew McIver, the
01:23bull.
01:24They were really nice, showed us around their barns, watched the horses work.
01:27It's really interesting because it's so different to England and South Africa, in
01:31fact.
01:32It sort of re-highlighted why we're here.
01:37I said straight away to Jamie and my dad that we have to come back with the Breeders'
01:41Cup runner.
01:43It's the aim.
01:44It's probably not this year, but definitely next year or the year after.
01:49There's been two yearling sales in England so far, and we've bought seven already.
01:53We're not trying to get hundreds of yearlings.
01:55We're just trying to buy a really nice type of yearling.
01:58The idea is to keep it like 40 to 60 horses, and just real nice horses.
02:03We've bought a half-brother to Gogo Yebari, who's a filly out train, who's won five races
02:08this year.
02:09He's by Sergei Prokiev.
02:11We've bought a nice Kamiko Colt.
02:12Kamiko's flying at the moment.
02:14He just won a nice race in Canada.
02:17The idea is to try and buy horses that can run in group races, so we can also come and
02:22race in America and places like that.
02:25What makes us unique, and it's pretty unique in England, we've started with a two grand
02:31horse, a five grand horse, and an 11 grand horse.
02:33Between them, they've won probably 10 races.
02:38We've then followed up the next year and won the Brocklesby, which was the biggest early
02:42two-year-old race, with a free horse, basically a tiny little horse that no one wanted.
02:48We've got a horse we bought from Aidan O'Brien from Cornwall for 10,000, which was second
02:53in a group three last weekend.
02:56He won by six lands first time out.
02:58What makes us unique is we're continually doing well with a 10 grand budget, so we're
03:04trying to attract bigger owners to support us to be able to buy the horses we want like
03:08this week.
03:09That's what we're working at.
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