The positivity in New Zealand harness racing has only made Cran Dalgety busier ahead of the 2025 National Yearling Sales.
Kentuckiana Lodge is currently balancing a busy racing period with the careful study of yearlings across the country as the sales approach.
It won’t come as a shock to many to say that Cran is something of an optimist and positive thinker at the best of times.
But what he is seeing in the industry at the moment is putting an extra spring in his step.
“I think the game is in a better space now than it has been for some time."
“Quite often when we talk about how the industry is travelling it is all about prize money, but it goes beyond just the purses.”
“We are racing for good stakes, which is great but I think the leadership of the industry, the prospects ahead and the celebration of the game right now are as good as we have seen for some time.”
“Brad Steele has come into HRNZ and he’s made his mark already and we can see he wants to deliver real change.”
“Dean Shannon leading Entain and the TAB, we couldn’t have a better man in charge there with his business acumen and his passion for our sport.”
“We are seeing more coverage of the sport on TV, on social media and the positive stories are shining through.”
“It is so refreshing to see, and it is momentum we want to keep building on.”
Cran is also seeing that positivity flow through as the National Yearling Sales approach.
“I think it is safe to say this won’t be one of our smaller drafts of yearlings when the buying is all said and done.”
“We have owners keen to continue their association with us, many of them have had a lot of fun with young ones from previous years
“But we have also had new people put the feelers out and ask about taking a piece of one of the horses we do secure.”
“There are a lot of moving parts ahead of any yearling sale, but I can quite confidently say there are going to be a whole lot of new faces in the barn by the end of this month.”
With the expectation of the number of yearlings bought hitting double figures, Cran has been deep in study ahead of the sales.
So far, the trainer has seen about 80% of the catalogue for both Christchurch and Karaka in the flesh.
“We’ve been on both yearling tours so far and we have headed out to a number of the vendors on our own.”
“The standard of presentation has been high again and you have to have that discerning eye and be a harsh judge.”
“We have marked down what we have liked and our homework is well on the way to being done before sale time.”
For more information about joining the excitement of racing a horse with Kentuckiana Lodge email c.dalgety@xtra.co.nz or call Cran (027-436-0667) or Chrissie (027-278-9466).
