IT WAS game over after the very first lot at Saturday’s Goresbridge Supreme Sale of Showjumping foals – GBBS International’s Emerald van’t Ruytershof entry – exceeded last year’s top price (€18,000). One of eight fillies sold, the June-born foal went on the market at €16,000 before the hammer fell at €19,000.
Wexford brothers Shane and Paraic Kenny were Lot 1’s successful bidders. Although Shane lives “five minutes from Barnadown”, the venue for this auction, run in conjunction with the Irish Breeders’ Classic, Paraic is now based in Germany’s Mecklenburg region.
A win in the nearby arena that day for the sale-topper’s relative GCS Venus helped her cause.
“A nice quality foal with good limbs. Myself and Paraic bought her between us, we buy a few quality foals and have an Emerald - Coronet Obolensky, bought here last year from John McKibbin. We’ll keep her and maybe send her out to Paraic then. Hopefully it will pay off in the future,” said Shane who was himself competing at the Breeders’ Classic.
“We’re delighted the Kennys have her. She’s very blood, very active and a good mover. We had a lot of people looking at her on Saturday and when you have a filly like that going to the sale, you’d be hopeful,” commented Cheryl Broderick who runs the sport horse breeding side of brother Greg’s GBBS business.
“That foal was related to the four-year-old final winner [GCS Venus] as the foal’s dam MHS Malbec (Plot Blue) is a half-sister to MHS Attraction (Numero Uno), the grandam of the winner. Malbec is back in foal to Dominator Z,” added Broderick.
Like Dominator Z, Emerald van’t Ruytershof is another popular Diamant de Semilly son and sired the top two-priced foals last Saturday. Aidan Flanagan, who breeds Irish Draught and sport horse foals under the Goldsmith Country and Goldsmith prefixes respectively, almost missed his opportunity to buy the second-highest lot (Lot 13), owned by Michael Callery.
Road blocks
Having attended the IDHBA national show in Punchestown that morning, two blocked roads delayed Aidan’s arrival in Barnadown but he managed to secure the chesnut filly for €17,500.
“We had a couple earmarked and she went on the market at €14,500. I know Michael well as he bred the three-year-old colt Goldsmith Royale (Cavalier Royale) I own, he has a very unique pedigree with Luidam on the dam’s side.
“Michael has great, unique lines,” he added about the Greenacres Stud owner. “Emerald was certainly the attraction but she’s out of a good mare Greenacres Quality (OBOS Quality) that I like. Hopefully we’ll compete this one but ultimately the long term plan is to use her as a broodmare.”
Flanagan’s buy was the fourth of Greenacres Quality’s foals sold at the Supreme Sale. Barnadown is a lucky venue for her Meath owner as her 2017 Air Jordan colt Greenacres Jordan also won the Horse Sport Ireland show jumping foal championship hosted there that year.
“I was happy although I knew I had something special, it’s a great way to feel going to a sale! I bred the dam and she’s out a very special mare Imperious Lux. She also bred LLC Lux Like Cavalier that jumped all the World Cup classes in Australia and was on the shortlist for the Rio Olympics but got an injury.
“The dam of the foal, thank God, is in foal to Emerald again. I like him a lot and I’ve another Emerald filly going to Cavan in two weeks’ time. I try to keep good mares and match them with the best stallions,” added Michael.
The third-highest price of the day was secured by Pat Kehoe for his ABC Mayflower (Tangelo van de Zuethoeve – Ardnehue Diamond Cruiser) from another good performance family. Sold to Gerard Burke for €13,000, this meant the top-priced trio were all filly foals.
Online sale
“I was delighted with the sale, it was very positive all round with an 80% clearance rate and it was good to sell 12 out of the 15 foals. There was plenty of customers and a few good prices which is always nice to see. It’s good for the sport horse trade and trade has been amazing really over the past two years,” Goresbridge auctioneer Martin Donohue commented afterwards, attributing the company’s buoyant trade to online sales.
“There were 13 individual bidders on eight different foals, one was sold online and went to Wales. Online has revolutionised the horse sales as the number sold online is incredible. Never in our wildest dreams could we think we’d sell so many.
“At the start of Covid, we knew we had to put the sales online, [wife] Mary Frances looks after the whole online business and only for her, it wouldn’t be as successful. I can’t stress it loud enough really what online sales are doing. It’s making the world a very small place and we have access to customers we’d never thought of.”
Lot 7, John McKibbin’s Leestone Cornetti was the online sale and this Cornet Obolensky filly was bought by Ken Bowman for €10,000. The other Cornet Obolensky entry (Lot 12) was Joe Allen’s Gypsy and event horse producer Daisy Duggan signed for this colt, a half-brother to last year’s Casall ASK sales-topper, at €11,000.
Lot 14, a colt by Eldorado Van De Zeshoek sold for €11,000 \ Rolf Stenberg jumpinaction.net
Dream week
“Any day you get a foal sold for 10 grand is a super day!” said Ray Carroll who, with brother Aidan, breeds sport horses under the Carroll Brothers Ireland (CBI) banner. From Kinnitty, Co Offaly, the brothers have been living the dream having bred three horses that were recently selected for the Irish Sport Horse team going to the WBFSH championships in Lanaken.
One of them – Susan Fitzpatrick’s CBI Keatingstown Victory (Vittorio) – is a half-brother to the Quel Homme de Hus colt (Lot 6) that the brothers sold for €12,000. Both are out of the Diamant de Semilly dam Cenith M.
The other Lanaken-bound pair are the six-year-olds Kayleigh Soden’s CBI Bella Donna (Zapatero VDL) and Denis Gallagher’s CBI Karhari (Goodluck VDL) that finished first and second in the Dublin six-year-old final recently.
“It’s been a dream couple of weeks alright,” Aidan agreed. “To even have bred horses competing in the classes, because most of what we bred wouldn’t have been much older than these three, but then to win is just unreal. There’s been lots of calls from well-wishers in the horse industry.”