A COMPARATIVELY brief mares section brought down the curtain on this year’s sale and this part of the sale illustrated that a mere glance at the final figures for an auction can, at times, be quite misleading.

The average of €16,778 and the €8,500 median were down by 35% and 30% respectively. However this part of the sale actually returned quite a heartening level of trade and the clearance rate jumped from 55% to 75% which is one the strongest recent returns for the mares sale.