Invercargill breeders Mark and Debbie Smith took an already buoyant sale to new levels when their Bettor's Delight colt from classy former racemare Pemberton Shard was knocked down to powerhouse Sydney buyers Emilio and Mary Rosati for $170,000.
Later in the day, Otautau breeders Dave and Dawn Kennedy's Bettor's Delight colt from Beaudiene Maja Babe also reached $170,000 when another topline Australian buyer put their hand up.
The colt was secured by leviathian Melbourne owner Jean Feiss, who races her horses from the powerful Mark Purdon and Natalie Rasmussen stable.
The top-equal lots helped cap capped a very successful first venture into the standardbred yearling market for New Zealand Bloodstock.
All three of its sales this week - the North Island sale and Christchurch trotting and pacing sales - have resulted in increased returns to vendors compared with last year.
Yesterday's pacing yearlings sold for a total of $6.3million.
That represented a total increase of $800,000 on the equivalent sale last year, which had 65 more horses catalogued.
The sale average rose from $26,000 to a whopping $42,000.
Dave Kennedy endured a horror 24 hours leading up to the sale of his striking black yearling.
The trouble started when he was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and got kicked by the Smiths' Pemberton Shard $170,000 yearling.
Kennedy was not badly injured in the incident, but that did not mean his luck had turned.
He lost a Bettor's Delight filly yesterday morning after she got caught in a fence.
Kennedy's horror run came good when his colt from Beaudiene Maja Babe caught the eye of Feiss.
''It is that bloody good it is unbelievable - we didn't think we would get anything like $170,000.''
While the Kennedys were taken by surprise at how much their colt fetches, the Smiths were not quite as off guard.
''Pemberton Shard's colt was absolutely one out of the box and we were hoping we would be able to get nice money,'' Mark Smith said.
