What had Luk Van Puymbroeck and Gerald Lenaerts been expecting from the new ‘studio live’ look for the Flanders Embryo Auction? Both organizers hadn’t even dared to make any predictions ahead of the auction. “An average amount of € 15,000 per lot would be great,” both Luk and Gerald assumed.

But on Friday evening it appeared that Luk and Gerald had been far too cautious. Fourteen of the sixteen unborn foals were auctioned for an astonishing amount of € 282,000, which means € 20,143 on average.

“Absolutely fabulous!” Both auction organizers sounded carried away. “This collection should have been auctioned in the United Arab Emirates, but even there a live audience wouldn’t have been allowed. For that reason we were forced to stay in Belgium. A sheer online auction has never been our intention. Potential buyers had been able to put bids already on our website in the two days before the auction, but tonight was the real thing and they were ready waiting for the final moment.”

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In between auctioning, special guest Rob Ehrens, chef d’equipe of the Dutch national jumping team, shared inside information about sires such as Darco, Casall and Heartbreaker. Pedigrees in hand, he often mentioned horses which had competed for medals with the Dutch team. The Heartbreaker x Cassini I, from the same dam as the 1.60m Nations Cup horse PSG Final, was sold to South Africa for € 26.000.