marlhill house stud
Travelling sales team
An autumn yearling sales season on tour is in store for the Marlhill House Stud team as it is to offer horses in Doncaster at the relocated Orby Sale before travelling direct to Newmarket ahead of the Tattersalls October Sale, writes Aisling Crowe
T
HE THRILL AND EXCITEMENT of selling a yearling that tops a prestigious sale is something known only to a select few breeders and stud farm managers. That dizzy whirl of emotions; the knowledge that your horse is potentially special coupled with the anxiety as the sale grows ever closer, the hope and trepidation mingle as the appointed hour looms. Those five minutes in the sales ring seem
to defy the laws of physics as time passes with the speed of a glacier slipping down a valley until the auctioneer brings his hammer down. It’s an experience that Brian McConnon is familiar with, recalling his memories of Marlhill House Stud’s Goffs’ Orby sale-topping yearling, as he sits beneath a photograph of the Frankel colt out of Belesta who made €1.6m to Justin Casse in 2017. “The sale was a bit of a blur, but I kind
Marlhill House, owned by Eddie and Eimear Irwin, based in Tipperary in the shadow of Rockwell College
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of knew from day one that he was special,” McConnon says. “He was one of those horses that everything came easy to him, there was never an issue with him. “I knew he was nice, but it is not until people start to come and look at him for the sales and start remarking on the quality that you start realising that your own impressions are correct. “When you get to the sales and there starts to be a bit of a buzz around the
