Amid a "whirl of hands and shouts from the bid spotters at Australia's biggest thoroughbred racehorse auction," Teo Ah Khing spent A$1M ($748,700) in "a little over a minute," according to Jamie Smyth of the FINANCIAL TIMES. Teo, the Malaysian-born owner of China Horse Club, who is "on a mission to attract China's growing band of billionaires" to the "sport of kings" and rebuild an industry that was banned for more than half a century, said, "It doesn’t take long to spend money at Magic Millions." Teo was one of about a dozen buyers from mainland China at the Magic Millions auction in Queensland. These "relative newcomers to the bloodstock industry," along with a "thriving" Australian racing industry, are pushing sales to "record levels." On a global level, Chinese money is helping the bloodstock industry recover from a "slump" caused by the '08 financial crisis. Gerry Harvey, founder of Harvey Norman and owner of Magic Millions, "one of the world's biggest thoroughbred auctions," said, "China is becoming a linchpin for us. Every year we are seeing its involvement growing." Sales at the annual auction of one-year-old thoroughbreds, or yearlings, jumped almost a quarter last year to a record A$116.6M, beating a previous record of A$108.4M set in '07. China has gone from "almost nothing to become Australia’s fourth-biggest export market for thoroughbreds, after New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong" (FT, 1/13).
