It was fitting that on the eve of the Goresbridge point-to-point and national hunt horse in training sale, one of the top lots from the April sale, which had marked the reintroduction of bloodstock sales to the Kilkenny sales ring, made a perfect start to his career under rules for new connections.
Donnchadh Doyle’s Belclare maiden winner Epic West is the horse in question, as he ran out a seven and a half-length winner at Carlisle on his initial outing for Jamie Snowden having been been bought for €60,000 at Goresbridge by leading bloodstock agent Tom Malone.
This time it was the turn of Doyle’s brother Eamonn to consign a highly-coveted lot at Thursday’s sale, when his Milo Miller was knocked down to Charles Byrnes and Richard Downes for €62,000.
A Ballyragget adjacent maiden winner last March when under Donnchadh’s care, the five-year-old switched to Eamonn for his seasonal re-appearance when his trainer became the latest member of the Doyle clan to take out a handler’s permit this season, finishing a close second by recent Lingstown banks winner Fountain House in a Damma House winners-of-two contest earlier this month.
The Black Sam Bellamy gelding then went on to finish a fine second in a point-to-point bumper at Fairyhouse behind Willie Mullins’ Full Confession, and that is form that Byrnes and Downes clearly like the look of as they also went to €46,000 to secure Youlita.
Paul Cashman’s Youmzain gelding had finished immediately behind Milo Miller at both Damma House and Fairyhouse this month, having won his maiden at Loughrea in October.
Mick Goff’s Kocktail Bleu proved to be the top-priced four-year-old at the sale when he was bought for €54,000 by a British cash buyer. They French bred had run four times, most recently falling at the final fence in Boulta on the Saturday preceeding the sale.
Lot 24 - Milo Miller (GB) (2019) consigned by Monbeg Stables (E.Doyle) SOLD for €62,000 here at Goresbridge Horse Sales.
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Speaking afterwards in a sales review on the auction house’s X account, Ed Donohoe reflected on the day’s trade.
“We had really good trade, a top price of €62,000 from Monbeg, we have had a load of really good prices, we probably didn’t have as good a clearance rate as what we had in the April sale, but we had a good, solid sale and a sale that was really well received with horses going all over the place and hopefully there will be winners out of it,” he said.
“The vendors want this sale, the buyers want it, so I think the best is yet to come. Thanks to all our vendors and best of luck to our buyers.
“Some of our UK buyers didn’t make it over but they were online, the online is a huge part of this sale process and I think the vendors need to buy into that a little bit more and put all the online stuff up, because there is people starting to buy these horses online no doubt, and we see with the sport horses and now I would love to see more of that with the national hunt.”
Catalogued: 54
Offered: 47
Sold: 29
Clearance rate: 62%
Turnover: €581,000
Average: €20,034.48
