A solid market and strong bench of buying power came to the fore at Sunday’s Cape Yearling Sale, which took place at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth.

Added to this, the marked popularity of the progeny of several young stallions saw gains posted in all of the sale’s aggregate, average and median price on Sunday.
The gross aggregate of the Cape Sale rose from R26 015 000 in 2023 to R27 085 000, despite the sale sporting a smaller catalogue.
Both the average and median prices increased from a year ago, with the average price rising from R171 151 to R206 756, and the median gaining from R130 000 to R180 000.
With reasonable reserves set on the majority of yearlings, just ten lots failed to find new homes at this year’s Cape Yearling Sale.

Equus Champion, and G1 Sun Met winner, One World came up with his first stakes winner the day before when his son One Stripe bolted home to win Saturday’s R1 000 000 G3 City Of Cape Town Cape Of Good Hope Nursery, and buyers were understandably keen to buy his yearlings.
A pair of One World colts made R900 000 apiece to jointly top the 2024 Cape Yearling Sale. The Soetendal Estate (as Agent) consigned Godric Gryffindor (Lot 113) was knocked down to the Hollywood Syndicate for R900 000, with the Wilgerbosdrift bred Undivided (Lot 37) sold to Sandy Arundel for the same price.

Godric Gryffindor was produced by the six time winning Master Of My Fate mare Preferential, while Undivided’s dam Dipladenia, a winning daughter of Flower Alley, was produced by a twice winning daughter of Western Winter and multiple G1 winning champion Dancer’s Daughter.
As popular as One World proved, it was another young son of Captain Al who headed the Sires table at Sunday’s auction. Varsfontein Stud’s homebred stallion, and multiple graded stakes winner, Erik The Red, whose first crop sells this year, headed the Sires list on Sunday, with his 16 yearlings grossing R3 540 000 and averaging R221 250.

Erik The Red’s top priced yearling was the Varsfontein consigned filly Kissing Kin (Lot 75) who was sold to Hollywood Syndicate for R400 000.

Wilgerbosdrift had an outstanding sale and were the leading vendors at the 2024 Cape Yearling Sale. The Piketberg based farm sold all 18 yearlings on the sale for an aggregate of R7 005 000 and, no doubt, will be looking ahead to this year’s National Yearling Sale with some confidence.

Hollywood Syndicate topped the buyers list and bought 20 yearlings for an aggregate of R5 260 000. The tally included the joint top priced One World colt Godric Gryffindor.

A full list of prices and statistics for the sale can be viewed online at www.bsa.co.za