Sport Horse Sales 2023

Holger Hetzel’s 18th International Sport Horse Sales in Goch on 29 November was another resounding success. All 20 of the horses in the auction collection found new owners at the event attended by over 700 guests and customers.

The top bid came from a longstanding friend and customer of Holger Hetzel, a Rhenish businessman who is now the proud new owner of seven-year-old Crazy in Love by Cornet Obolensky (dam sire: Diamant de Semilly). After a long and dynamic bidding battle, the auctioneer’s hammer went down at EUR 1,000,000. Seven-year-old Space Taxi attracted the evening’s second-highest bid of EUR 700,000. Sired by Captain Fire out of a Chacco-Blue dam, Space Taxi is heading off to an international Swiss show jumper’s yard. A Monaco-based lady rider and member of the Global Champions Tour all-female Iron Dames team bought the third-most-expensive horse at the auction, also by Cornet Obolensky – seven-year-old Selle Francais stallion, Grand Amour. Six-year-old KWPN gelding Perfetto (by Diamant de Semilly) was also purchased for the Iron Dames team and auctioneer Volker Raulf’s hammer came down at EUR 580,000, making him the fourth-most-expensive horse at the auction.

The average hammer price for the 20 horses in the collection was over EUR 301,000. Some went to longstanding and new customers in Switzerland and Monaco, but there were also several winning bids from buyers in the USA, Mexico, Canada and France. Organiser Holger Hetzel was delighted with the outcome of the Sport Horse Sales: “It was great to see everyone enjoying themselves. The atmosphere was amazing, and our guests loved the brand new entertainment programme and the auction collection. One thing I’m really pleased about is that the horses in the collection didn’t just sell, they also attracted a lot of bidders, which always adds to the excitement.” The evening programme was skilfully hosted by famous German TV presenter Jana Azizi.