Racing: meet the next generation of horse traders

On the opposite page there is a sale report from a recent sport horse sale at Goresbridge where the top price was a healthy €30,000.

At the very top level sport horses (we’re talking Olympics quality show jumpers) can fetch millions but, in general terms, the sport horse market is the poor relation compared to thoroughbred racehorses.

Not that it’s any easier to make money trading thoroughbreds but there is far greater potential to hit the jackpot. There were some extreme examples of quick profits made by Irish vendors at last week’s flat yearling sale in Newmarket, a sale which broke numerous long-standing records.

This was a sale which saw 345 yearlings sell for an average price of €463,000, which is simply off the charts. The vast majority of these horses will be racing in Britain and Ireland for relatively modest prize money and a look back at the returns generated by the most expensive horses in sales like this one in previous years would terrify you.

But you didn’t necessarily have to have a blueblooded yearling by Frankel or Sea The Stars to be a vendor in this sale. A number of Irish ‘pinhookers’ entered horses they had bought as foals for modest five-figure sums and sold them for six figures.

There was Johnny Hyland of Oghill House Stud in Monasterevin, Co Kildare, who sold a €52,000 foal for €144,000. Ger Burke of Glidawn Stud in Dungarvan, Co Waterford, sold a €12,500 foal for €53,000 and he sold a €17,000 foal for €106,000.

Young traders

Ger and Yvonne Kennedy’s Sherbourne Lodge near Thurles also landed two touches – selling a €27,600 purchase for over €130,000, and their €30,000 foal became a €157,000 yearling.

But these are very experienced people, says you, and a novice couldn’t expect to replicate those results.

However, a couple of very young traders also pulled off spectacular coups at the sale. Young Luke Bleahen of Clifton Farm in Ballinasloe, Co Galway turned a €2,500 foal into €50,000. Bleahen, from a family steeped in bloodstock, did something similar at a recent Irish sale.

And what about schoolboy Fionn White from Kildare who, with the help of his solicitor father Feargal, sold a colt for €257,000, having bought it for €36,000 less than a year ago.

Luke and Fionn are just two members of the next generation of horsemen and women who are increasingly making their presence felt at European bloodstock sales. It’s great to see, and results like those at Newmarket last week will hopefully inspire more like them to find out more about a career in this exciting sector of the equine industry.