Stakes-winning juvenile sold to Hong Kong

[Wandering Eyes]

A month after his barnstorming stakes victory at Ellerslie, smart juvenile Do You Just (NZ) (So You Think) has been sold and will continue his racing career in Hong Kong.

The son of So You Think showed promise through his two-year-old season, but it wasn’t until the Listed Champagne Stakes (1600m) in mid-May that he showed his true colours, leading up and spacing his rivals by 6-½ lengths.

That performance came as little surprise for co-trainer Lance O’Sullivan, who shared in the ownership of Do You Just with Waikato Stud, his daughter Caitlin O’Sullivan Doyle, and her husband Tom Doyle. 

“The only surprise about his stakes win was that he hadn’t produced that kind of performance before then,” O’Sullivan said. “We certainly thought he was up to it.

“As we went, we found out a bit about him, and the reason why he hadn’t been was because he’d never raced right-handed before that. He trialled particularly well right-handed, and the first start he had right-handed, he did that.”

When purchased for $250,000 out of Carlaw Park’s draft at New Zealand Bloodstock’s National Yearling Sales, connections had hoped Do You Just would race on as a colt, but after being gelded, selling him became an inevitability.

“He was purchased as a colt, but once he had to be gelded, he was no real value to Waikato Stud, as they would generally race fillies or colts,” O’Sullivan said. “I also raced 20 percent of the horse myself.

“When we sell a horse out of the stable, the one thing we hope is that they turn out really well, so the owners will come back in the future.

“It is the way racing is, some people choose to keep them, but this horse was purchased for $250,000 at the sales, and he paid his way and sold for a profit.

“Hopefully, we can repeat the same sort of exercise in the future and the horse can remain a colt, but he just wasn’t going to make a racehorse as a colt. “We hope he can go up to Hong Kong and turn into a top horse for his new connections.”

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