What can you expect from the very first live foal auction as restrictions are eased during the coronavirus crisis? “Lower prices,” predicted Gerald Lenaerts and Luk Van Puymbroeck, but they were so wrong! On the Saturday night at Sentower Park in Opglabbeek (BEL), there was a top auction in which 24 of the 25 showjumping foals were sold. The average price of 25,792 euro even broke the record of the 24,000 euro average in Beervelde in 2019.
It was a rather bumpy road toward the auction evening because of the coronavirus. During the worst of the crisis no date could be fixed; it was uncertain that the auction could happen at all and there was a last-minute change of location. But Gerald Lenaerts and Luk Van Puymbroeck still stuck to the plan: “We are not going to sell online like everybody else. We wanted a live auction with live-streaming to create a fine atmosphere and transmit that via the live-streaming to the people at home.”
The party atmosphere developed immediately at Sentower Park. For most of the two hundred guests it was their first evening out and they bid with great enthusiasm. Even so, only four foals were sold there and then, seven were sold by telephone and thirteen via the online bidding system. The total sales price amounted to 619,000 euro.
This time the fillies were most popular. Ur My Girl EH (Emerald x Kannan), bred out of the 1.60m level grand prix mare Kismet, formerly ridden by Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum, was the auction topper, going for 58,000 euro. “She goes to our loyal customer Greg Broderick from Ireland.” The winning (online) bid of 38.000 euro for Chica Van Schuttershof (Catoki x Kashmir Van Schuttershof) came from Switzerland.
Three foals were knocked down for 36,000 euro. Champion by Nature Z (Comme il Faut x Vigo d’Arsouilles) was bought on the spot by a Mexican, Coba PB Z (Cornet Obolensky x Baloubet de Rouet) will go to the USA and Electric Kick Axelhoeve Z (Emerald x Quintero) will leave for South Africa. Delicat Z (Darco x Freeman VDL) will move to Russia for 34,000 euro. Perfect (Berlin x Heartbreaker), a full brother to H&M Extra, was claimed by Egypt for 32,000 euro and Tintin van Nieuwendale Z (Tangelo van de Zuuthoeve x Darco) was sold for 30,000 euro to Poland. With buyers from Brazil, Ireland, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Sweden, there was an exceptional international interest.
“This is really incredible, we are speechless. It turned out a good decision to go live and take the risk. The ambience at the auction was high and this probably caught on. You see plenty of auctions that make a show of the prices, but here it was the clients who did so. I recently remarked in the Belgian media that we would be very happy if we reached an average price of between 10 and 15 thousand. But this has far exceeded our expectations,” says Luk Van Puymbroeck.
In the meantime, the collection of showjumping foals for the next Flanders Foal Auction on August 8 in Beervelde has been selected. Details will be published online in one-and-a-half week’s time.
More from News:
