LAST weekend’s victory for the Liz Halliday-ridden Cooley Nutcracker in the CCI4*-L at Galway Downs came at an opportune moment as the Tolan R gelding, who was winning for the second time at this level, is a graduate of the 2019 Goresbridge Go For Gold sale, whose 2023 edition takes place next week in Co Wexford.

Goresbridge Horse Sales’ Martin and Mary Frances Donohoe plus their longtime Go For Gold selection team of Sally Parkyn, Clare Ryan and Chris Ryan, backed up by Nicky Roncoroni and Bridget Spiers, narrowly avoided going into three figured lots in the catalogue, by accepting 99 entries for the sale. With withdrawals, there are now 95 lots catalogued, the majority of whom are registered as bay or brown Irish Sport Horse geldings.

Stallions

Sixty-seven individual stallions are represented, those with two or more offspring catalogued being the Belgian Warmblood sires Dignified van’t Zorgvliet (three), Freestyle van de Wolfsakker (three) and Vivant van de Heffinck (three); the Holstein stallion Condios (two); the Irish Sport Horse stallions HHS Cornet (eight), Lagans OBOS Quality (four) and Sligo Candy Boy (five); the thoroughbred stallion Pointilliste (four) and the Zangersheide sire Ganesh Hero Z (three).

There are seven other Belgian Warmbloods listed in the sires’ index plus four Connemaras, one German riding pony, two Selle Francais stallions, three other thoroughbreds, two Oldenburgs, 17 KWPN-registered stallions, 10 Holsteins, one Hanoverian, one Trakehner and one other Zangersheide-registered sire.

Lot 43 at the 2023 Go for Gold sale \ Bit Media

Traditional

There are just three lots registered as being a Traditional Irish Horse (TIH). The first of these is Alice Copithorne and Una O’Donnell’s home-bred Kipling (Lot 3), a five-year-old Imperial Tiger gelding who finished eighth in his young event horse championship at the Dublin Horse Show in August. H&J Sporthorses’ unnamed three-year-old Lagans OBOS Quality gelding (Lot 43) is out of a Master Imp mare from the family of Carlow Clover (1.60m). Brandon View Stud sells Lot 82, a three-year-old chesnut Pointilliste gelding whose dam, Clifden Imp (by Master Imp), is an own-sister to Monarts Masterpiece (CCI4*-L).

As usual, the catalogue features a photograph of each lot and it’s interesting to note that more and more horses are being posed in an open stance, showing all four legs, rather than the traditional square stance. Videos of all lots are available to view online.