Photo: supplied
The South Island’s Inglewood Stud is renowned for the quality of yearling drafts they bring north to Karaka on a regular basis, but next month’s NZB Ready to Run Sale takes the respected nursery into uncharted territory.
It will be Inglewood Stud’s first time selling horses at the world’s leading sale of two-year-olds.
“It’s a new thing for us,” said Gus Wigley, who owns and operates Inglewood Stud with his wife Bianca.
“It’s obviously a sale that’s done very, very well, and there have been plenty of our horses in the past that have been bought as yearlings and then turned over successfully as two-year-olds at the Ready to Run Sale.
“We’ve decided to roll the dice ourselves this year, see how we go and hopefully have a bit of fun doing it.
Photo: supplied
“We were having a bit of a quieter spring this year, and we know that we’ve got the skillset here in our team with Kayla (Milnes) and Jo (Boakes), who go to the track every day with our racehorses. Kayla has been doing all of the breaking and education for us for quite a long time now. So we’re giving it a go and we’ll see how we get on.”
Inglewood’s inaugural Ready to Run Sale draft is made up of two horses. Lot 319 is a gelding by Wild Ruler out of a winning half-sister to the Group Two winner Vanna Girl (Husson), while Lot 449 is a Profondo filly from an outstanding Inglewood family that goes back to Group One winner Seamist (NZ) (Beaufort Sea).
“We had a really nice Harry Angel colt as well, but he unfortunately had to come out and we’ll give him a bit more time and then put him into training ourselves,” Wigley said.
“We’ve still got two nice ones in there. The Profondo is a lovely filly from our good Seamist family. She’s thrived through the sale preparation and is a big, strong girl now. I think she’ll be popular.
“The Wild Ruler was entered for Karaka earlier in the year and just cut open a hock the week before the sale. It was very much a superficial injury, but just the timing meant he couldn’t go up there on a plane and make the sale. He’s certainly gone the right way in between times.”
Inglewood’s North Canterbury location does create an additional challenge in the lead-up to next month’s sale.
Photo: supplied
“It will be a big ask – they’re heading up later this week for the Breeze Ups, and then they come back home for a month before travelling north again for the sale,” Wigley said.
“We looked at a few options, but in the end that’s the approach we decided on. We’ll try doing it all ourselves this year and see how it all goes.”
View Inglewood Stud's draft online here.
The 2026 edition of the Ready to Run Sale will take place at the Karaka Sales Centre from 11am (NZT) on 18 & 19 November, with Breeze Ups to be held across two consecutive days on one turf track at Te Rapa Racecourse on 12 & 13 October from 9.30am.
