THE trading year for 2016 closed on a welcome high when, for the second year in succession, a cluster of high profile sales smashed Irish auction records. As show jumpers and event horses realised six-figure returns, and prices for three-year-olds reached new heights, the results were a timely boost both for the industry and the specialist sales which sold them. Encouragingly, the returns also illustrated a marked increase of customers from across the Atlantic, as well as those from England and mainland Europe. Competition for these top end horses was intense and some of their prices creditably outstripped the European equivalents.

There were a further glut of heady figures recorded in the varying specialist foal renewals but these successes were all tempered by a rather more grounded level of trade in the country.