Every gamblers dream is to know just one "good thing" during their punting life. Well any punter can own a "good thing" next Sunday by attending the QTIS 600 sale at Magic Millions Gold Coast. You see this attractive chestnut filly that was photographed this week is by Lyndhurst Stud resident stallion Hidden Dragon out of a mare named Good Thing.

One of the two big annual yearling sales in Queensland happens next Sunday and Monday, March 21 and 22, when the QTIS 600 sale gets underway at the Magic Millions sales complex at the Gold Coast.

Some 462 Lots are catalogued for sale with the first 231 Lots going under the hammer next Sunday and the other 231 Lots being offered for sale the following day. Each sale day kicks off at 11am local time.

No fewer than 75 stallions are represented at the sale and I thought it would be educational for my valued website visitors if I took the drive to visit the biggest single vendor at the sale – Lyndhurst Stud at Warwick – and got an insight into the workings of a big and respected stud to get an idea as to the events that transpire prior to these yearlings turning up on sale day looking all spic and span for intending purchasers. So to that end, on Tuesday of this week, I drove to Lyndhurst Stud and caught up with Jeff Kruger to find out more about their draft and the preparatory work that goes into their yearling draft.

Jeff advised that Lyndhurst has 41 yearlings in the sale, so by my maths, they have nearly 10% of the total sale Lots.

He explained that his family are excited by the upcoming QTIS 600 sale and explained why he has such an air of confidence about it, by saying, “Last year was the first year of the QTIS 600 sale and we were happy with the results we achieved. The whole thing about it is the prizemoney as it’s improved the prizemoney in all the regional centres of Queensland. For example, the Hidden Dragon (2YO) that won in Townsville last week - Steel Dragon - who is unbeaten in four starts got $96,000 for his win. Yesterday (Monday) I was talking to the people that are coming from Longreach and they’ve got a tour group of 40 something coming to the sale. He (the group spokesman) couldn’t speak highly enough of QTIS 600 prizemoney and how it’s raised the bar in their area and it’s been the same reaction from everywhere, from Far North Queensland down through Central Queensland and back to Brisbane. The prizemoney is enormous and it’s only available for these 462 Lots that make the pay up. The beauty of this catalogue is that if you make the pay up, the one pay up puts you into both the QTIS 600 series and it also makes you eligible for Magic Millions. So it is a sale whereby you’ve got a second option (as a vendor), that being if you don’t sell the horse, you can keep it to race and you’re racing for both series. This year’s QTIS 600 sale has a certain buzz about it though as there are two tour groups of 50 coming from Rockhampton, there’s 45 in the Townsville tour group, there’s over 20 coming from Cairns and there’s over 40 coming from the Roma region which extends west to Longreach”.

Jeff Kruger was confident that the stud’s Lots would sell themselves. “We have 23 Hidden Dragon’s in the sale and he’s currently fourth in Australia in terms of earnings for first season sires. He’s second in Queensland on individual winners behind Jet Spur. The one thing that Hidden Dragon has going for him is that of his four winners, three of them have been metropolitan winners (Huff And Puff and Hidden Kisses in Brisbane and Obsidian Dragon in Adelaide). Whilst not taking anything away from the likes of Jet Spur who has two metropolitan winners, Hidden Dragon has a lot more un-named horses, so I think that the race for premier first season sire in Queensland will be a ding dong affair between the pair of them right to the end of the season.”

I asked Jeff Kruger to explain to readers how they go about getting the yearlings ready for a sale and he advised “We normally bring our colts in 10 weeks before the sale and the fillies come into the stables eight weeks before the sale. The idea behind that is the colts get to a point whereby they start to fight in the paddock, so bringing them in two weeks earlier than the fillies lessens their chances of getting hurt.”

Queried as to how many individual staff has to assist in the preparation of the yearlings Jeff stated, “We just use our permanent staff. We don’t have additional staff coming in to help prepare the yearlings. So whilst we have a dozen permanent staff at the stud, we use four of those staff, plus my brother Griff and I to prepare the yearlings, so six of us prepare these 41 yearlings towards the sale.”

In terms of how a stud goes about preparing a raw yearling for a sale, Jeff advised the workload the young horses go through before they walk on to the Magic Millions podium by saying “Basically the preparation involves constant exercise over an eight (fillies) or 10 week (colts) period to build up muscle tone and to try to get them looking like athletes. We walk them twice a day for 40 minutes because during this preparation they are in their boxes 24 hours a day, so we try to get them out as much as we can. We have two big sand rolls, so all day we’re putting a new horse out every 20 minutes. We also have 10 night yards, so every night 10 of them go out into a bigger yard where they can walk around, so with there being 40 horses, every fourth night they are out in the big yard as well. We have a walker that is about 90 metres in circumference and it takes eight horses at a time and we walk them in a different direction each day. Some of them can get away on you a bit (put on weight), but we never lighten off the feed, we stay on the same diet and might increase the workload on the odd yearling that is putting on weight. That increased workload may involve lunging them, but we try not to do too much lunging, as they are still growing and their knees haven’t fully closed over, so we try to be kind to them.

In order to get the stud’s 41 yearlings to the Gold Coast Jeff interestingly advised that the stud moves the whole lot in the one trip. “We employ Higgins Transport to take them down in four truck loads and doing the whole operation at the one time has many benefits. For instance we then have four experienced drivers here who can all help load the yearlings. That way if there are problems there are plenty of experienced people to help rectify them. Say a truck breaks down along the way, or a horse flips over during the trip, well again help is close by.” Jeff went on to say that Lyndhurst “rarely have a problem loading inexperienced horses on a horse float for the first time, as the horses get used to confinement during their eight and 10 week preparation”.

Upon arrival at the Magic Millions sales complex at the Gold Coast, the same six people who prepared them at the stud look after the 41 yearlings, but “four other casuals come in for the sale part.” Jeff advises the “four casual staff” are required at the Gold Coast “as naturally we don’t have the luxury of being able to take the walker with us, so all 41 Lots have to be hand walked, so we start early and have six horses out walking at any one time and the other four staff are cleaning the boxes and doing feeds and waters whilst we are out walking, so that will take a couple of hours. When the walking and the boxes are done, we generally duck off and have breakfast and get some better clothes on, to present horses later in the day to prospective buyers, or to take them into the sale ring if it is a sale day.”

Asked what yearlings from the Lyndhurst Stud draft he felt would be their highest priced Lots, Jeff pondered for a while before replying, “I think we’ve got several Lots that will feature in the top 10 Lots of the sale. The first one would be the Oratorio colt from the mare Swinburn (Lot 460). There’s a lovely Hidden Dragon colt out of a mare called Lady Laila (Lot 275). She’s a Fusaichi Pegasus mare and this is her first foal and he’s a beautiful colt. There is also another good looking Hidden Dragon colt and he’s another first foal out of a Tale of the Cat mare called Silver Cat (Lot 418). They are three yearlings that I suspect would feature in the top 10 yearlings at the sale.” Asked what money he thought these three yearlings would sell for, he said, “Last year we had the top two priced Lots at the sale and one made $100,000 and the other made $130,000 and we never imagined those two yearlings would bring that sort of money, but when you get two potential buyers going at each other, it’s anybody’s guess where the bidding can stop, so I’d be thinking there is a chance the Oratorio colt and the Lady Laila colt could both bring six figures, as these are two horses that are hard to fault and they have clean x-rays.”

Editors comment: It should be noted that Lyndhurst Stud did not pay Justracing any money, or kind, to have this story written on their yearlings, or to have some of their yearlings displayed as per below. The story was researched and written to help promote the overall sale, as QTIS 600 is a wonderful concept - and they banner advertise on the website, as per above. I’d also like to make a suggestion publicly for future QTIS 600 sales which I thought of driving home from Lyndhurst. Why isn’t there a competition open to the public on a particular selected Lot whereby the person with the closest recorded guess to what the yearling sells for, can win a holiday worth a couple of thousand dollars to the Barrier Reef, or whatever. The competition would be only available to people who are present at the sale and I’m sure a big organisation like Magic Millions or Queensland Racing wouldn’t have a problem finding a travel sponsor for that. My idea would be to have it run along similar lines to the “Guess the weight” of the bullock competition which is so popular at the RNA Show each year.

Today on the www.brisbaneracing.com.au website every visitor can have an exclusive look at some of the Lyndhurst yearlings that were photographed this week.

Going one step further, readers can click on the QTIS 600 banner above to peruse the QTIS 600 website and get all the up to date information on the concept. It is well set out in layman’s terms - and is very easy to follow. If you take a few minutes and have a wander through it – you’ll see it contains a host of educational material.