The success of the Land Rover Sale this week had absolutely nothing to do with me, but it was like watching a baby that I had nurtured developing into a very successful adult.

In 1996, after some years of struggling to establish a foothold in the sector, the National Hunt team that I led at Goffs came up with the idea of a store sale for 250 lots, with the horses sold being eligible for a £50,000 bumper. It was innovative and many said it was a mad idea.

The sale was initially hard to sell to vendors, well used as they were to getting top prices at the rival Derby Sale. A satisfactory clearance rate of 79% was achieved at the first Land Rover Sale, with a top price of 45,000gns.

It was the first National Hunt sale at Goffs to have a turnover in excess of a million guineas, the 162 lots selling for 1,319,500gns and an average of 8,145gns.

Since then it has reached a number of milestones, including in 2007 when the average soared to €33,154 on the opening day.

For three years between 2009 and 2011 it was somewhat subdued, thanks in no small part to the economic conditions of the time. It has been on an upward trend for the last few years and this year it simply rocketed forward.

Success for sale graduates helps a great deal and this sale can lay claim to many top class performers at the major meetings in Cheltenham, Aintree, Punchestown and Fairyhouse.

Success breeds success and vendors have been supporting the sale with better quality stock. The buyers will turn up if the horses are there.

This all bodes well for the Tattersalls Derby Sale too and the team at Fairyhouse can look forward with some confidence to their sale in less than a fortnight.

London Sale

It also highlights a new vibrancy in the marketplace generally and this will be further tested on Monday evening in London where Goffs will stage a special event.

The breeze-up section of the London Sale looked good when the catalogue was published. Then came the horses with form and it was an even better story.

The addition of a lifetime breeding right to Invincible Spirit was headline-catching, before Goffs announced this week the sale of the first Frankel foal. Expect fireworks over London on Monday.