Corne Spies learned his outstanding horsemanship skills from his father Tobie and together they became a formidable force at the thoroughbred Sales around the country.
As they honed their collective skills they adopted a points scoring system they invented by themselves.
They look at every conformational aspect of a yearling or two-year-old and give it a score out of ten.
Pedigree doesn’t play a role when looking at the horse, but it does confirm whether or not the horse will be expensive or not.
So in summery, they do not look at the pedigree at all, they look at the physical specimen and decide afterwards whether it’s worth buying or not.
When horses score high points on their system, they have had a good strike rate of attaining black type.
A recent example is the Gr 3 Tote Godolphin Barb Stakes winner Elegantrix, to whom they gave a score of eight, and she now runs against the boys in the Gr 2 Omoda Golden Horseshoe over 1400m on Hollywoodbets Durban July day.
Another good example is the prolific winner William Robertson, who landed the Gr 1 he so richly deserved when winning this season’s TAB Computaform Sprint. He sored a seven on their system.
An interesting point to note is that American trainer legend D Wayne Lukas also had a points scoring system to analyse horses at the Sales, although the Lukas and Spies models are totally independent of each other.
There are many who have a good eye for a horse on the training track or the race track. But to have an eye for a Sales horse takes a specialised eye and it takes years and years of experience, because unlike racing the Sales do not happen everyday.
Spies Racing can help with the selection process and they have decades of experience in training horses to fulfill their potential.
Corne’s son Xander adds a third dimension to the team, not only due to the horsemanship skills he has learnt, but he is also something of a whizzkid.
You need and ultra sharp mind at the Sales to do quick expense and budget calculations before the bidding starts and epecially during the bidding.
See the advertisement above if you wish to contact Spies Racing ahead of the 2025 BSA KZN Yearling Sale, which takes place on July 3. They will be in attendance and offering their expert service.
