It’s little more than a month before this year’s Hong Kong International Sale (HKIS) and executive manager Danny Rolston is getting excited about the quality of this year’s crop.

Largely held in June or July in recent years, the HKIS has returned to its once-traditional time slot and 19 gallopers are set to go under the hammer at Sha Tin on March 15.

“The idea around going back to March, firstly there’s the security knowing it’d been done before, the trainers accepted it and the horses were ready in time,” Rolston said.

“But the weather was a big one for me personally. By bringing the horses in later in the season, we were trying to hold two key events – being the breeze up and the sale – during typhoon season.

“There was the risk of disappointing the owners by having to reschedule, and that did happen in 2022 when the breeze ups were interrupted by the typhoon in July. The horses were coming into fairly extreme heat and training on wet tracks every second day, so we decided to take the option to go back to March, bring the horses into a kinder climate and hold the event without the risk of interruption.

“It also offers more comfort to our customers – the sale got pretty hot there last year – and it gives the trainers a bit more time before a horse’s four-year-old season to get them into a training regime.”

Sourced by Michael Kinane in the northern hemisphere and Craig Rounsefell in the southern hemisphere, the Jockey Club’s purchases are then prepared by Tim Boland in Australia and Brian Meehan in the United Kingdom before coming to Hong Kong.

This year’s Hong Kong International Sale crop ‘a bit more seasoned’

While the HKIS has been maligned in the past, Rolston said last year his team was endeavouring to have horses more seasoned ahead of the sale, with “more runs and more longevity” remaining a focus with the current crop.

“We have consciously changed our approach with the preparation of these horses to not necessarily try and get 100 per cent of our purchases through to the sale, but make sure what we do bring to the sale is fully educated and ready to go,” he said.

“We’re racing on fast ground here all the time and if we can put the right conditioning into them, yes the potential is there for an earlier start but more runs and more longevity is what we’re trying to achieve.

“This year we’ve got them where we had them, or even a bit more forward, than last year, despite holding the sale a bit earlier.”

Romantic Warrior is the current flag-bearer for the HKIS while Super Goldi was the first of last year’s purchases to break through on the track, saluting for Frankie Lor Fu-chuen in December.

“This year I think we’ve got sires that have been successful here in Hong Kong. We’ve got a lovely Per Incanto, we’ve got a couple of very nice Deep Fields and out of Europe we’ve got another really nice Invincible Spirit and a good looking No Nay Never,” Rolston said.

“This is my third sale since arriving in Hong Kong and I’d say we’ve got a much more consistent line of top-end horses than we had in the past two years.”