This year's annual NSW DPI Tocal College Approved Australian Stock Horse Sale was held on the November 6, and all the effort of staff and students was on show.
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The sale held online, was facilitated through Hunter Valley agents Bowe & Lidbury and saw 12 handpicked lots put up for sale. The overall result exceeded the 2020 result with returns grossing over $215,000.
Each lot was videoed and put through their paces at Tocal College, Paterson in the college's horse arena. This type of livestock auction is now commonplace thanks to COVID-19.
The online only sale commenced at 4pm Saturday, November 6, and closed 24hrs later.
The top priced horse for the day went to lot 4, "Tocal Sunset", a three-year-old gelding which hit $38,900.
Tocal Sunset had bids from twelve different users with a total of 340 bids. Over the 12 lots offered, the average gelding price hit $18,425/head, while the mare offerings averaged $17,300/head.
AuctionsPlus reported that across the sale, the online catalogue views and active bidders were up on last year.
Catalogue views for the auction increased 8 per cent on last year's sale, falling just shy of 7,000 views, while the numbers of online bids jumped from 284 in 2020, to 1,538 in 2021.
With the sharp rise in bids placed, the number of active bidders increased from 54, to 66, with a total of 1,225 logins throughout the sale. The results were a strong endorsement of Tocal's breeding and training program.
Tocal College Acting Principal Ms Julie White said "the sale keeps going from strength to strength". She paid tribute to staff members Luke Collard, Chantelle Vella and Simone Harvey who lead the horse course program and were the reason for the successful sale outcome. Many others provided specialist help during the year, most notably Lyn Walsh, Suhas Ranadive and Fiona Lawrence.
Tocal Centre Manager Robert Rein said: "this outstanding result is the culmination of over twelve months of hard work and commitment by students, horse course staff plus all who devote hours, effort and passion to our Australian Stock Horse section".
The Tocal Australian Stock Horse sale is an Annual event at Tocal and will remain one of the most important parts of the Horse Course calendar. The sale is an opportunity for students to experience preparing horse for sale in a big event and is an invaluable experience setting them up for a career in agriculture.
Tocal College are now preparing for and looking forward to next sale in November 2022 and thank industry for their support.