WHILE Covid-19 forced cancellation on last year's Scone Horse Festival, its return next month sees two major omissions.
The Scone Race Club's stand-alone Saturday city meet (May 15) has been transferred to Rosehill, while Inglis has returned the Scone Yearling Sale to Riverside Stables, Warwick Farm, with a revamped and named edition.
Now known as the Hunter Thoroughbred Breeders Association May Yearling Sale, it is slotted for Sunday, Monday May 2 and 3, which spells a State-wide end of live-country Thoroughbred only auctions.
During my 31 years as The Land's Thoroughbreds editor, I have reported on annual regional yearling sales at Scone, as well as Hawkesbury, Canberra, Goulburn, Wagga Wagga, at Hardwicke Stud near Yass, and two each at Dubbo and Tamworth.
Changing trends, technology and Covid have reshaped the selling arenas.
While it appears, there could be room for at least one live-country auction, Mark Webster - managing director of Inglis revealed some pertinent points, following the Sale's initial move to Sydney last year - due to Covid-19.
"We (Inglis) found that the sale was very well received here at Riverside and it was one of the strongest Scone sales that we have had, with Team Hawkes the leading buyer," said Mr Webster.
"When you look at last year's list there were a lot of Scone buyers at that sale that would not ordinarily attend, so it made us think about whether the sale should be moved back to Scone this year, or should it stay in Sydney where it can grow."
Mr Webster said that there were limiting factors if the sale was held in Scone.
"Firstly, its stabling capacity; every year we (Inglis) have three or four hundred entries, and we could only accommodate 200, so a cap of 200 is a negative to breeders who want to sell their horses - with some that don't get in. Secondly, we want to appeal to a wider buying bench; while we still want all the country trainers to support the sale, we want it more accessible for all the metropolitan trainers so Riverside is better for that.
"Thirdly, we want it to be a "catch-all" sale, a sale for horses that may have been passed-in from the Classic or Premier Sale, or scratched for minor reasons, and they can roll-in to this sale, and with the added capacity at Riverside that's what we have done and have catalogued 350 horses."
Mr Webster said that Riverside's facilities also make it much easier to inspect horses, as well as being much safer for horses and people. "If there was a more modern safe complex we certainly would consider selling back at Scone," he said.
"While the Scone sale at Scone "worked well" according to Alison Hush of Davili Thoroughbreds at Luskintyre, she agrees with Mr Webster. "We will be able to show our horses off much better at the Riverside complex, and it has allowed more horses to come to the sale," she said.
"I think there will be a lot of country trainers still looking for horses, so hopefully they will turn up."
Bryan Carlson of Emirates Park, Murrurundi, believes there is room for a country sale.
"The Scone sale worked really well; a lot of breeders did not have far to go to bring their horses, and hopefully in the future there will be a sale back in Scone, or Tamworth maybe," he said. "The prizemoney in the country is only getting bigger, and I do think there should be a country sale somewhere."
Racing NSW announced that Rosehill would stage Scone Race Club's (SRC) eight-race program and which includes five stakes and the Inglis restricted highlight $300,000 Three-Year-Old Guineas, which follows the Scone Cup meet at Scone the previous day.
According to SRC chairman Alastair Pulford, proceeding with its Saturday May 15 meet at Scone was too risky.
"Planning begins many months in advance at a big expense, and the risk of a Covid-19 lockdown was too great," said Mr Pulford.
"If a lockdown happened with no crowd (attending) or just a small crowd allowed, potential losses could occur, so it was the sensible financial route to take (to transfer to Rosehill) this year."
"Prizemoney relies on sponsorship, and we could not expect the sponsors to come on board without the big day as it normally is," he said.
Mr Pulford said hopefully next year will be back to normal, the carnival being bigger and better than ever.