Sale initiative fruitful for Windsor Park

[Wandering Eyes]

Windsor Park Stud’s ‘Rugby, Racing and Beer’ South Island Sale has proven to be a fruitful initiative for the Cambridge thoroughbred nursery over the last couple of years, which was further enhanced over the weekend when sales graduate Collect Your Cash took out the Listed Dunedin Guineas (1500m) at Wingatui.

The Shankar Muniandy-trained gelding became the first stakes winner from the sale, adding to its previous black-type performer in Kikimora, who placed in the Listed Canterbury Belle Stakes (1200m).

Collect Your Cash was purchased out of the sale in May 2022 by Ben Kwok, under his Lionrock Bloodstock banner, for $15,000 and was subsequently sold to a client of trainer Shankar Muniandy, for whom he has now won two and placed in one of his four starts to date and earned more than $80,000 in prizemoney.

Windsor Park Stud principal Rodney Schick was pleased to get the stakes result ahead of the next edition of the sale in May.

“He was a lovely horse and we sold him at our ‘Rugby, Racing and Beer’ sale in the South Island. He was bought by Ben Kwok at that sale and was subsequently sold to Shankar, and I am rapt for Shankar because he is a really enthusiastic guy and has supported us. It was a good win,” Schick said.

“We will be running it (sale) again this year in May where we will be selling nine or 10 (yearlings).

“I have always wanted to do a sale like that. It is like a Hong Kong-style sale. We take the horses down, but they are not in the auction room, Steve Davis (auctioneer) comes down and we always get an All Black guest speaker. We have a big lunch and then sell them off the big screen.

“It has been really good – we have taken 18 horses down there and sold 18. Kikimora has come out of it, we have sold some nice winners, and to have a stakes winner now is really good.”

Bred by Windsor Park Stud, Collect Your Cash’s stakes win was also the first for his ill-fated sire Rageese, who has also produced stakes performer Nebuchadnezzar.

“We imported the mare (Prompt Payment) a number of years ago. We have had quite a lot of success bringing those European mares down,” Schick said. “We haven’t got much of the family, but it is always good to breed a stakes winner.”

Fresh off New Zealand Bloodstock’s National Yearling Sale at Karaka last week, Schick said he was happy with the farm’s Book 1 results but expects to see a stronger sale next year.

“Book 1 held up really well and I think we saw the effects of the economy in the second sale,” he said. “I just think the way the economy is at the moment, it was tough and people are finding it a bit tough.

“With all the initiatives going on at the moment with Entain, I think we are going to see a far better sale next year.”

Meanwhile, Schick is looking forward to heading to Te Rapa on Saturday where he will watch Imwonderfultonight carry Windsor Park Stud’s Silks in the Gr.1 BCD Group Sprint (1400m).

Trained by Sam Mynott, Windsor Park Stud race the four-year-old mare in partnership with Ben Kwok, and have enjoyed plenty of success with her of late.

The daughter of I Am Invincible has placed in the Listed Stewards’ Stakes (1200m) and Gr.3 Concorde Handicap (1200m) for the partnership, and they are hoping she can break through for an elusive stakes win this weekend.

“She has been going well and she has put in some very good runs,” Schick said. “I think she found the track a bit tricky the other night (at Ellerslie in the Concorde), changed legs and it was the first time right-handed. She had a huge run down at Trentham (for fourth in the Gr.1 Telegraph, 1200m). Back at Te Rapa, she has won there, and Sam Weatherley is on and he has won on her. If she gets the right run, she will be very competitive.”

Schick is also pleased to be giving 26-year-old Mynott the opportunity to train the exciting mare.

“Sam was a very accomplished horsewoman before she came into training thoroughbreds. We like to give young trainers opportunities and she has grabbed it with both hands,” he said. “She went out and bought some nice horses at Karaka, which is always nice to see young people doing. I think she has got a big future in the racing game.” 

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