As business around the world learns to adapt to a covid world, The Monart Sale takes ‘control of the controllable’ and launches online for the first time in the sale’s 11-year history.
The Monart Sale has gone from strength to strength since its inception in 2010, and attracts riders and buyers, from around the world. The Monart class of 2020 offers a world class register of 101 young horses, carefully selected by an equally world class panel of riders - Polly Jackson (GB), Niall Griffin (IRL) and Bill Levett (AUS) assisted by Olympic team vet Marcus Swail
The 2020 sale has had to navigate Ireland’s strict pandemic mitigation levels and protocols, and most recently the new 6-week lockdown that is in place until the 1st December, in order to operate.
With Ireland now in a country wide lockdown neither vendors or buyers will be onsite during the sale. In a revised format the horses will be brought onsite in smaller groups and their presentations filmed, with the unedited footage added to the auction site. The auction will now take place, solely, online with half of the lots available for bidding on Tuesday 3rd November and the remainder being available on Wednesday 4th November.
“A lot of this has been out of our control, so our main focus has been to control the controllable. We want to give our vendors and buyers as much confidence in the sale as possible. Ireland have taken a very serious approach to Covid-19 and as such we’ve invested heavily in making Monart Equestrian, as a venue, as covid secure as possible, and in giving the sale the tools to succeed no matter what pandemic level Ireland was operating under” says Sale Director Niall Griffin.
“We’ve had to change the whole format. Initially it was running without the benefit of the hotel, due to distancing requirements, and now it is running without anyone onsite, so we’ve had to adapt the format and facilities in order to keep everything running safely and legally.” comments say Niall.
“The biggest development is the new online bidding platform and the livestream. We’ve never done a livestream for the sale before, mainly for logistical reasons, but we’re hopeful that it will open the sale up to new bidders from around the world. The livestream will be different to what we had previously planned but we’re now working on a different format to run alongside the online bidding. In a normal year sale would expect online bidding to equate to 20-30% of sales, but in a covid year we’re expecting that to be more.”
Monart has attracted a number of notable buyers over the years including Michael Jung (GER), Oliver Townend (GBR), Astier Nicholas (FRA), Caroline Powell (NZL), Karl and Katlyn Slezak (CAN) as well as UK based Irish international Austin O’Connor. and the top lot (CBI Aldo - €45,000) being sold to New Zealand’s Caroline Powell.
“We like the depth that goes into selecting the horses, they’ve put a lot of time and effort in to getting a good selection.
Niall, Polly and Bill have been all over the world and they know what to look for in good horses. We absolutely love their types. The ones we’ve bought before have either gone on to be sold to really happy clients or the ones we’ve still got we’re super happy with”, confirmed Karl and Katlyn Slezak.
Previous Monart Graduates include:
- Gortfadda Diamond (Panda x Water Valley Cool Diamond), competed by Emilie Chandler and winner of Blair Castle CCI4*-L 2019
- Shannondale Mari (Shannondale Maria x Shannondale Sarco St Gyvan), 1st Barroca D’alva CCI2*-S, 3rd Kilguilkey House International CCI3*S 2020
- Hot Bobo, competed by Karl Slezak (CAN), winner of Midsouth CCI2*L 2020
- November Night, Cooley Rorkes Drift and Lassban Diamond Lift – all of which have been members of Championship teams and competed at CCI5* level.
Footage of the class of 2020 can be viewed at www.themonartsale.com. Prospective buyers are required to register in advance of the sale, whether they are intending to attend in person or online.
