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Clonagh Lucky Explorer who sold for a new all breed record price of €52,000. \ Alfie Shaw
Many people will look back on 2020 as a year they’ll want to forget.
While not perfect by any means in the cattle world either, 2020 did bring a new age of buying and indeed sale highlights.
Never again will we see bidding for stock solely doable from the ringside as the implementation of lockdowns nationwide led to the introduction of online bidding in nearly every mart, big and small.
An idea that was always going to come into play at some stage for sales got its timeline fast-forwarded due to necessity.
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Ernehill Samson who sold for the new record Elite sale price of €8,600, pictured with Catherine McCollum
The Irish Angus Cattle Society hosted its annual elite sale in Carrick-on-Shannon over the weekend. This was the 13th year of the sale and proved to be one of the best yet, with a record price and average rising to the highest seen in five years. Clearance rates for both bulls and heifers rose to the highest level since 2016, an impressive stat given the catalogue entry has increased substantially since then.
The general sentiment from both breeders and organisers was that the sale was a great success. It must also be noted that the overall standard of bulls offered for sale over the weekend was well up on previous years.
A final bid of €8,600 from a young livestock breeder at the ringside secured the much-admired price topping bull at the Irish Angus Cattle Society Elite Sale at the Showgrounds, Carrick-on-Shannon on Saturday.
Fifteen-month-old Ernehill Samson, bred by Francis and Noel Fitzpatrick, Milltown, Belturbet, Co. Cavan received a flurry of bids from both the restricted ringside attendance and online breeders before auctioneer Francis McGowan knocked him down to his new home in the mid-west.
The bull was bred by the sire Ballymagrine Wonder, a son of Bohey Jasper, and out of the home bred dam Ernehill Niamh and carries five stars all the way for docility, carcase weight and conformation.