The fact millions of dollars will be traded this week on thoroughbreds with pedigrees slanted towards a quick racetrack return isn’t lost on a syndicator trying to secure a stud deal for a Melbourne Cup placegetter.
Magic Millions will offer the first yearlings for sale in 2013 and there will be no shortage of buyers lured to the Gold Coast in the hope they will be back there racing for $2 million in 12 months time.
It’s the economics of Australian racing that can frustrate bloodstock people like Jamie Lovett.
A co-director of Australian Bloodstock, Lovett celebrated another imported winner when Award Season won decisively at Warwick Farm on Saturday.
What won’t be so easy for Lovett will be finding a home for Lucas Cranach, the German-bred stayer who ran third to Dunaden in the 2011 Melbourne Cup.
Lucas Cranach succumbed to injury last week, prompting his retirement after an Australian career kept to three starts.
“I know we are going to have trouble placing Lucas Cranach with a stud in Australia,” Lovett said.
“No one here wants to breed a horse they have to wait until it is four years old before finding out if it is any good.”
Lovett said it would not be out of the question for Lucas Cranach to return to the northern hemisphere to start his stud career.
“Maybe the place for him is possibly France or even Germany where he obviously had a bit of a name,” he said.
“We all realise he is a Group One horse but the reality is he is only a Group Two winner.”
In Lucas Cranach and Germany, Australian Bloodstock discovered a new frontier for sourcing overseas horses but Lovett says it has now come at a cost.
“On the back of Lucas Cranach we were able to buy (Doomben Cup winner) Mawingo,” he said.
“But now everyone is taking notice of the German form and getting a horse like Lucas Cranach has made it hard for all us to (to buy at the right price).”
