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Agent George Moore has started a private investment fund to trade horses into the lucrative Hong Kong market as owners from the racing mecca find it increasingly difficult to source proven horses from Australia.
The son of retired champion Hong Kong trainer John Moore, Moore Jr. has been a longtime agent for prominent owners, including the Kwok family, who race the ‘Beauty’ horses, but he is now expanding his business to race and trade horses in Australia.
At last week’s Inglis Premier Yearling Sale, Moore bought colts by Written Tycoon and Ocean Park for AU$90,000 each for his new syndicate, towards which he is contributing at least 30% of the capital. His involvement added international depth to the buying bench, with fellow Hong Kong traders Andy Lau and Ross Lao of Upper Bloodstock being highly active, signing for 11 horses in Melbourne.
Moore was also outbid on an AU$280,000 Deep Field colt bought by the Hong Kong Jockey Club from the draft of David Kobritz’s Musk Creek Farm and the AU$410,000 Gilgai Farm-bred-and-sold Written By colt who was purchased by Ciaron Maher Racing and Best Bloodstock.
The agent enjoyed a six-day vacation in Bangkok and the Maldives after the Premier sale, but he returned to Australia for the Magic Millions Adelaide Yearling Sale, which starts March 14, to add to his portfolio of trade horses.
“We’re targeting horses between AU$80,000 and AU$250,000, at that level, so we can limit the risk. We can spread the risk over four to five different horses at a valuation of AU$600,000 and that way we have a little bit more margin for error and there’s a lot more upside to buying four or five horses,” Moore told ANZ Bloodstock News from Magic Millions’ Morphettville sales complex.
“We only need to secure one 63 rater for Hong Kong to cover all our costs, so I think that strategy is a lot better.”
A seven-time Hong Kong champion trainer, Moore Sr. briefly operated a stable in Sydney, alongside his brother Gary, before relocating to the Gold Coast in 2021, but he closed that down six months later and returned to Asia.
When Moore’s father returned to Australia the pair targeted colts with the aim of turning them into stallion prospects, but with the retirement of Moore Sr., George altered the business model.
“We were buying more horses with stallion pedigrees in the AU$500,000 to AU$800,000 level and it’s just not the right sort of strategy for Hong Kong when private purchase 63 raters are valued at between AU$500,000 and AU$600,000,” he said.
“So, I put a couple of friends together and dad actually called me last week after seeing what I bought at the Premier sale, and now he’s involved, too.”
Moore has recently traded the Gerald Ryan and Sterling Alexiou-trained High Blue Sea, a winner of two of his four starts, and the Team Hawkes-trained Capital Theatre, a Newcastle maiden winner who has also been city placed on four occasions.
“We had eight horses I co-owned last year and six or seven of them qualified for Hong Kong at all different levels, and we sold most of them,” the agent said.
“Horses like Capital Theatre had three seconds in a row and we spent AU$650,000 on that horse, so we sold him for a small loss to Hong Kong, but he’s a nice horse, at least a Class 2 horse, I think.
“We just got a bit unlucky with him running three seconds in a row, otherwise we probably would have made a profit, even though we spent AU$650,000 on him, which goes back to why I’d rather spend between AU$80,000 and AU$250,000 on a horse.
“We made a decent profit on all the horses, and now we’ve got no stock.”
For the new crop of yearlings Moore is aiming to source—for which the two-day Adelaide sale could play a pivotal role—Ryan and Alexiou as well as the Hawkesbury-based Brad Widdup will be among six or seven trainers the syndicate will use to educate the group.
“The demand is high for private purchases into Hong Kong, but there’s no supply and no one is selling,” Moore said.
“I’ve been on my phone yesterday (Saturday) trying to get horses up to AU$3 million on the market and no one is really budging and wanting to sell their horses.
“There are a lot of clients looking for sprinters and, even if we had AU$3 to AU$4 million, they’re not going to sell top sprinters (from Australia) because the sprint races are worth so much money now, prize-money wise.”
He added: “We’ve got to pick up four to five for the syndicate and then we’ll put them with trainers in Australia and race them. We might sell one or two of them as trial winners and then see how we go.”
The 468-Lot Magic Millions Adelaide Yearling Sale starts at 10 a.m. (local time) March 14.
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