Thanks to the champion Good Ba Ba, graduates of Hong Kong's international sale maintained a positive profile across the season, but the search for the next Good Ba Ba is proving to be both protracted and elusive, reports Murray Bell of the HK Racing Post. He says: The star of the Andreas Schutz stable was the first horse to sweep the major mile races in 2007-08 and was on his way to something similar this term. But the good fortune that had blessed him for the previous 18 months went missing at

Thanks to the champion Good Ba Ba, graduates of Hong Kong's international sale maintained a positive profile across the season, but the search for the next Good Ba Ba is proving to be both protracted and elusive, reports Murray Bell of the HK Racing Post.

He says: The star of the Andreas Schutz stable was the first horse to sweep the major mile races in 2007-08 and was on his way to something similar this term. But the good fortune that had blessed him for the previous 18 months went missing at the back end of the term, and a wet track for the Champions Mile meant the real Ba Ba didn't make it to Sha Tin.

Still, six Group One wins and the potential for more to come still makes Good Ba Ba a great running advertisement for the sale, which fell more in line with the rest of the world last December and sustained a substantial market correction.

The previous year's records for aggregate and average were trashed on the back of the global financial crisis, with both figures coming down 34 per cent. This edition of the sale grossed HK$87.2 million (from HK$132.4 million) and the average was down to HK$2.9 million (from HK$4.4 million).

The top-priced lot probably got there as much on "pedigree potential" as anything else. By top Australian commercial sire Redoute's Choice from a Bletchingly half-sister to champion stallion Zabeel, the HK$5.5 million colt went to Cheng Keung-fai, who two years earlier established a record price for Danesis.

Cheng's colt, now called Redoute Star and prepared by Tony Cruz, has been creating his own problems in races with slow getaways, though he did run third on debut behind Malayan Bright and subsequent winner Dashing Victory.

The sale graduates finished the season on a positive note, with Big Profit (trained by Danny Shum Chap-shing) earning the HK$1 million bonus for the most successful international sales griffin and Algarve winning for David Hall on the final day.