TOUGH market conditions prevailed for vendors again at Tattersalls Ireland on Thursday as the November NH Sale came to a conclusion. Total turnover for the five-day sale amounted to €10.6 million, the lowest since 2012 with the exception of 2020, when Covid was at its peak.

However, this year's catalogue was the smallest for decades and the sale is better judged on the average price of €17,592, which is only fractionally less than last year, while this year's median price of €12,000 is 14% lower than last year.

The week ended as it had begun, with stock by Blue Bresil topping the charts.

Thursday's trade was headed by a Blue Bresil yearling gelding out of Thanks For Tea, who was a good operator on the track for her owner/breeder/trainer Edmont Kent, winning four races and placing 10 times, including twice in stakes company.

The Shantou mare has also been kind to Kent in the sales ring and her yearling son sold today to Kevin Ross Bloodstock for €58,000.

“He has been bought on spec," team Ross reported. "We have the four-year-old half-brother by Mount Nelson and we like him, he is broken and riding and will go pointing next spring. They are quite different types of horses, but we like the older sibling. The sire speaks for himself and we have been very lucky with the broodmare sire Shantou."

It’s a family Edmont Kent has had a long association with and he explained: “I trained the dam and had the granddam. She was very promising but got an injury and she had three runners and three winners. We raced Thanks For Tea and we had a lot of fun with her. She won some bonuses for us and picked up blacktype. She was a hardy mare and we even raced her once three times in one week – she fell at the weekend, got beaten a short head during the week, and then on the following Sunday ran in a Grade 3 and she flew home to get beaten a couple of lengths.”

Of her Blue Bresil yearling he said: “This was always a nice foal, he was born a bit late and I said I'd keep him until he was a yearling. She is back in foal to Blue Bresil. She is due on January 12th so she looks very big at the minute and I will be watching her early and won't be taking any holidays in January!”

Sally and Matthew Darling have just moved from England to Ireland and they got their new venture Knockbaun Bloodstock off to a great start when selling a Golden Horn yearling gelding for €44,000, on behalf of breeder Elaine Chivers, to Richard Frisby.

The February-born gelding is out of a half-sister to A Wave Of The Sea, winner of the Grade 1 Spring Juvenile Hurdle.

Sally Darling said: "We have been in Ireland just over two months and we are near Gorey in Wexford, and just trying to set up a stud for ourselves."

British buyer Patricia Morris purchased a Jet Away gelding for €20,000 from fellow countryman Will Kinsey’s Peel Hall Stables. The yearling has a nice page, being the first foal out of the No Risk At All mare All Risk For Love who is a half-sister to Grade 1 winner Teahupoo. The gelding will be aimed at a store sale in 2025, all going well. Morris commented: “I always like Jet Aways. I really liked this one as an individual, he has a bit of quality. The dam's half-brother Teahupoo is a strong prospect for this season's Stayers’ Hurdle and I think the four-year-old half-brother La Haute Couture is well regarded too. The team at Peel Hall also do a great job.”

The sale wound up with a selection of breeding stock and among those to prove popular was Clonbonny Stud’s Bonny Kate who sold for €40,000 to Maurice Sheehy. A high-class chaser, she won the Grade 2 Dawn Run Chase for Noel Meade and owner Patricia Hunt. The full-sister to Mala Beach was offered with a March cover to Jet Away. “She is a nice blacktype mare by Beneficial so hopefully she’ll produce a nice foal in the spring,” Sheehy said.

The same price of €40,000 was given by Aubrey McMahon's Temple Bloodstock for The Twelve Pins from Closutton Stables. The five-year-old Beat Hollow mare, who will stay in the Mullins yard, is from a pedigree that has been very good to Willie and Jackie Mullins through the exploits of Blackstairmountain, Mt Leinster and Diamond Hill.

A couple of lots later, Cheltenham Festival winner Heaven Help Us (in foal to Walk In The Park) was led away unsold at €195,000.