Hallmark to offer half-sister to Group One winner Bonny Lass

Hallmark Stud will head to Karaka this week with a 10-strong draft for New Zealand Bloodstock’s National Weanling Sale, which is set to kick off at their world-renowned sales complex at 11am on Thursday.

“We have a very good draft that we are looking forward to presenting in the next couple of days,” Hallmark Stud principal Mark Baker said. “Right across the board there are opportunities for end use as a racehorse or horses they can trade at any stage, be that as a yearling, breeze-up stage or further down the track through the tried horse market.

“There are also several fillies with residual broodmare value, including two fillies that are half sisters to stakes winners and are by exciting young stallions.”

The first of those fillies is lot 17, the Hello Youmzain half-sister to Group One winner Bonny Lass, and Baker said she is a similar type to her well-performed sibling, who won the Gr.1 BCD Group Sprint (1400m) and placed at elite-level on four other occasions.

“She is a 25th of November foal,” Baker said. “She is plain like Bonny Lass was but is a great mover, has a great attitude and is very athletic.

“She uses herself really well, she is dead correct, and she is by Hello Youmzain, who is a sire on the rise.

“She presents as an opportunity for someone to buy a lovely filly that they can either trade or race and have broodmare residual, her mother Posh Bec has got an amazing record.”

Baker said another filly that offers plenty of residual broodmare value is lot 30, a half-sister to Group Three performer and Listed Queensland Cup (2200m) winner Nikau Spur.

“She is by an exciting young stallion in Sword Of State and she is out of a stakes winner in Sarsarun,” Baker said. “She is a lovely medium-sized filly that is correct and uses herself well.”

Baker is a big fan of Cambridge Stud sire Sword Of State and he has several colts by the sire in his draft that he thinks will be well-received, including lot 39, the colt out of Sorellina, a full-sister to Guineas heroine Katie Lee, and lot 136, the colt out of stakes performer Madame Giselle.

“The Sorellina colt has got great size and scope,” Baker said. “As with all the Sword Of States, he has got an amazing brain, they are total professionals. He is a lovely horse and there is plenty of upside with him.

“The Madame Giselle is another good Sword Of State colt. She was stakes placed and he’s her first foal. He is a very good colt.”

Baker is also upbeat about the prospects of lot 71, the Zousain colt out of Group Three winner Ammirata, and lot 81, the Wrote colt out of Camarosa.

“We have a particularly good colt by Zousain out of Ammirata, she was a stakes winner, and Zousain has gone to another level,” Baker said.

“Alongside him there is an excellent Wrote colt out of Camarosa. He is a lovely, scopey horse with a great mind and he will have particular appeal to people who trade to Hong Kong because his (Wrote) record up there is great, I think he is 11 from 14 now, they love him up there. He will be a perfect horse for someone to trade somewhere along the road. He is a lovely horse.”