The two-day Goffs Land Rover Sale of National Hunt store horses drew to a close with a lower-key session on Thursday and with overall satisfactory results in a difficult market.
Thursday's top lot was the 3-year-old Lauro (Ger) gelding Hero D'Engilbert (Fr) (lot 404) and he was scooped up by Michael Shefflin and Paul Holden for €43,000. Part 1 of the sale saw 184 horses sold from 220 offered for a clearance rate of 84% and an aggregate of €7,956,500. The average dipped 12% to €42,098 and the median was down 20% at €37,600. Part 2 proved trickier to move horses along, with just 58% finding new homes. The average was down 22% at €15,763 while the median dropped 20% to €13,500.
“The first sale in Ireland since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic certainly took a circuitous route to its conclusion,” said Goffs Group Chief Executive Henry Beeby. “Two new dates, discussions around location, overseas buyers coming, then not, further complications around a local 'lockdown' and more. We have never known anything like it and it's fair to say the sale was approached with a certain amount of trepidation to say the least.
“So to return a sale of vibrancy and depth has been little short of amazing. Of course the figures are not on a par with last year's record breaker, but the Part 1 statistics are very close to those returned in 2017 which was celebrated at the time as breaking new ground, and the trade was more than satisfactory when one considers the backdrop with a clearance rate of 84% that is very respectable at any time, together with a top price that matched last year's €185,000 high. Today was harder going but there was still keen interest from start to finish.”
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