The Vercingetorix filly Louis Goosen bought for R450,000 at this year’s BSA August 2YO Sale (Picture: BSA)
Louis Goosen has managed to buy a Vercingetorix at the last two BSA August Two Year Old Sales.
The one he secured last year turned out to be a lucrative pinhook.
He picked up an Ascot Stud-bred Vercingetorix colt out of the mare Flight Zone for R425,000 and resold her on the Race Coast Sales Two-year-old Sale just a couple of months later for R1 million.
He did it all on behalf of his owners, who doubled their money and paid him a handsome commission.
This filly is now trained by Paul Matchett and called Navigatrix and she won by 2,40 lengths on debut on 30 July this year at the Vaal Classic track over 1200m from draw three under Philasande Mxoli.
Interestingly, the same connections who bought Navigatrix for R1 million i .e. TKP Racing, bought her half-sister by Fire Away at the BSA KZN Yearling Sale for R300,000 shortly before Navigatrix had made her debut.
They obviously must have known Navigatrix was good.
Nevertheless, she started at odds of 10/1, drifting out from 9/2, because she was up against the 1/3 shot Rafeef’s Queen, who was coming off a good second place finish.
However, the 10/1 odds did not stop Navigatrix from winning in commanding style.
It just goes to show that there is not necessarily anything wrong with a horse who goes for a below average price … and R425,000 is way below average for a Vercingetorix.
Amazingly, Navigatrix’s dam Flight Zone is a six-time winning half-sister to the champion Bold Silvano, so one would have expected a higher price.
At this year’s August Two-Year-Old Sale Louis purchased a Millstream Farm-bred Vercingetorix filly for R450,000.
The difference this time is he has decided, at that value, to keep her.
He has already put together 75% of her.
Louis gave his opinion on how he got the two fillies: “We always try and fly slightly below the radar. There is a lot of value in horseracing, but you have to work hard and you have got to look for it.”
He continued, “Horses just sometimes fall under the radar, it happens. Everybody goes for the most popular ones with the mare for example being a Gr 1 winner and you only need two people who want the same horse. The biggest pocket wins and a R300,000 horse can easily go for R1 million and vice versa. Maybe it is also because sometimes people look for a ready-made horse. Those ones are easier to sell. So all in all there isn’t a specific reason the filly went for R450,000 … there is certainly nothing wrong with her and she is a nice filly.”
The filly is out of a one-time-winning Encosta De Lago mare and she is a full-sister to five-year-old Miss Ladyaterix, a four-time winner currently rated 93.
At this year’s Sale Louis also got a Declarationofpeace filly for R160,000, a Digital Age filly for R150,000 and a Last Winter filly for R60,000.
