Just like its hard-working mentor and matriarch Kitty Donohoe, Goresbridge Sales has matured gracefully over the years and is now entering the fifth generation of the family. Going back to its foundation as an auction house in the late 1800s, it still trades under the name of Michael Donohoe & Sons.

I first met Kitty Donohoe back in 1981 when Leslie Rothwell and I visited in he hope of gaining sponsorship for a new Irish Shows Association Young Horse Championship. Kitty invited us in, deftly supplied us with tea and listened to our request for £1,000 in prize money. Kitty’s husband Ned died just three years previously and she still had a young family. Yet with true Kilkenny grit, she said yes, and thus the first ISA All Ireland Young Horse Championship was born.

At that time, one of Kitty’s 10 children, 20-year-old Martin, had been doing apprentice auctioneering in Dublin and Clonmel. She recalls that one day they were doing a house auction and he came home to have a look. He declared he had learned more in that one day than in all the time he was away. “And when he said he would like to stay, I was absolutely delighted, she recalls with a broad smile.

A report in the Irish Horse Yearbook of 1983 had this to say of Martin’s early days on the podium: “His booming voice and confident easy manner showed a skill and professionalism which belied his young age”. Within 10 years, Killy had passed the baton to Martin. Today, along with his wife, Mary Francis and son John, he carries the tradition forward. “Kitty has backed us 100% in the decisions we have had to make,” he says. Among those decisions was the building of the large indoor that had only been a gleam in Kitty’s eyes when we spoke to her back in 1981. There has also been the addition of more stables, sand rings and oceans of parking.

Martin himself gives great credit to the auctioneering guidance in the early years of the great David Pimm, who in addition to Tattersalls, was then Goresbridge’s head auctioneer. Martin’s brother Edward fills that role now.

In that same 1983 annual it was reported that a top price of £7,000 had been achieved at one of the show jumper sales there. The fact that in November 2015 a record price of €1.4 million was paid for the Irish-bred VDL Douglas gelding Dougie Douglas at the Goresbridge Supreme Sale of Show Jumpers gives some indication of how things have progressed since those days back in the early 1980’s. In addition to Sport Horse sales, Goresbridge moved into the thoroughbred world 10 years ago. They had a turnover of €300,000 in their first Breeze-Up sale. It was €5.5 million in 2016.

The gems in their Sport Horse sector at the moment are their Go For Gold Sale of Eventers which takes place this year on November 13th, 14th, 15th and their Supreme Sales of Showjumpers is held at Barnadown and Amber Springs Hotel on November 14th. “The guesswork is taken out of it for those sales because the entries are selected, videoed to be shown in action all over the world,” Martin notes.

But he also warns that all is not roses in the Irish Sport Horse garden. For one thing he notes that farmers must now watch the profitability of every acre on their lands.

“The average price at our regular bi-monthly Performance Sales still stands at about €3,500 and costs are high,” he says with an earnest look that reminds one of Kitty. He also notes that the age profile of those sold is changing. No longer are British buyers coming over for three-year-olds. “They now want ones that have done a good bit.” But on a positive note, he says that while we regret the loss of so many small country shows, a number of good centres have sprung up around the country where young horses can get experience on good surfaces.

When visiting with Kitty Donohoe once more, it was a joy to see so many of her dreams realised. On the days I was there, the versatility of the facility was clearly evident as the sales room and the large restaurant had been transformed to accommodate a huge 600-Lot furniture and antique auction. This is now run by Martin and Mary Francis’s 28-year-old son John who has just returned from gaining property sales experience in Dubai. So the old sign outside the premises, Michael Donohoe and Sons Auctioneers, still rings true.