GORESBRIDGE GO

FOR GOLD SALE

Higgins hectic

The Wexford horseman prepped four well-sold lots at Wednesday’s dispersal including the sale-topper, Patrick Moore’s three-year-old Ramiro B gelding who had been in Higgins’s care for the past few weeks before making €53,500. Jason likes to see animals with whom he has been involved perform well for their new owners and so, while showcasing horses at Barnadown on Tuesday, he was delighted to learn that A Doll In Milan had landed a novice hurdle at Lingfield on her debut for the Nigel Twiston-Davies yard. The Milan mare carried Jason’s colours into second place on her only run in a point-to-point at Necarne Castle in May after which the Colin Bowe-trained four-year-old was sold for £56,000 at the following Brightwells sale in Cheltenham.

Watsons busy

APOLOGIES to Sam Watson for not listing him in last Saturday’s preview as one of the guest selectors for this year’s sale. The Co Carlow international rider was at Wednesday’s auction in the company of an Italian client who bid on three lots but, while underbidder on two, disappointingly failed to buy. Sam spent much of the previous week in Cavan, jumping both Horseware Bushman and Horseware Lukeswell. The latter went particularly well in the 1.30m qualifiers but just rolled a couple of poles in Sunday’s final. “My fault,” said Sam, “he was just a little underpowered for the combination.

“The horses will now get another bit of a break but I wanted to make the most of the indoor shows. There is a wonderful atmosphere at them which we don’t get at Irish events and it’s good for horses to experience this before heading to championships abroad.”

Sam’s father John was also busy on Wednesday evening, selling the homebred Ballybolger Joker, a four-year-old Craigstreel gelding out of Floating, and handing out flyers for the Traditional Irish Horse Association.

Weather woes

A SPECIAL mention goes to Maurice Cousins and the team at Barnadown Showjumping who had to deal with such horrendous weather conditions on Monday and Tuesday.

“The ground held up well in the cross-country field but, what saved us yesterday, was having the all-weather sand track,” said Cousins with conviction, “without it, we were sunk! We put up extra marquees so that people could view the jumping without getting wet.”

Thankfully the weather had been much better when the catalogued lots were videoed for the online footage. During Wednesday’s auction in the Amber Springs Hotel, all rounds were well displayed using high quality screens and the top half of one wall of the Corrig Suite. Kudos also go to Tadhg Ryan of Bit-Media for his coverage of the sale.

Buyers feted

SUCCESSFUL purchasers were feted on Wednesday with specially commissioned Goresbridge Go For Gold gillets from Horseware while the hotel presented a bottle of champagne to those buyers as well. The pre-sale champagne reception, sponsored by BBA Ireland, is a great way of encouraging all to get to the Amber Springs on time and can also tempt salesgoers to buy more bubbly for their tables.