28-04-2025
- Business
- Irish Daily Mirror
Katie Walsh makes monster profit with record-breaking €1.2 million sale
Katie Walsh spent many years riding winners at the Punchestown Festival but she's hit the jackpot on the eve of this year's meeting with a record-breaking sale.
Former amateur rider Katie, daughter of Ted and sister of Ruby Walsh, now runs a successful horse buying and selling business with her husband Ross O'Sullivan under the name of Greenhills Farm.
Last Thursday at the Doncaster Breeze-Up Sale, Walsh made history when her young colt by the sire Mehmas was sold for an eye-watering £1 million (€1.2m).
The price was a record for the sales ring by some distance with £660,000 the previous record amount paid for a horse last July.
The Mehmas colt became subject of a three way bidding war and hit the massive seven figure sum when a member of Godolphin's buying team finally made the successful bid.
The breeze-up sale is when vendors work out their horses on a racecourse in front of prospective buyers and Walsh's colt produced a very impressive display.
Walsh said: 'It's unbelievable. I'm delighted for my clients, he's owned by a big syndicate; there's people from Scandinavia, Ukraine, France. They gave €140,000 for him as a foal and it didn't happen for them as a yearling, so they asked me if I'd breeze him. He's been extremely straightforward from the get-go.
'Mehmas is obviously having a fantastic time and this colt has a lovely pedigree. He breezed very nicely and is going to a very good team. I just hope he's extremely lucky for them.'
The colt had been unsold at a yearling sale last year having been bought for €140,000 but Walsh worked her magic and he made over seven times that at Doncaster.
She enjoyed a hugely successful amateur career, and retired in 2018 having won races at the Cheltenham Festival and having finished third in the 2012 Grand National.
'It's very different (to riding), I'm not going to lie. Financially this makes an awful lot more sense, but they're two completely different things.," she told the Racing Post.
"It's a different thrill, a different buzz, a different adrenaline rush. You just don't know what's going to happen when you come into the sales ring. Hopefully he can go on and prove himself," said Walsh, who will be part of the RTE Racing team at Punchestown this week.
The sale had a poignant twist for his Ukraine-based connections, Jakob Dalhoff and his partner Maria, saying it was 'very bittersweet' in contrast to the plight of Ukraine following the Russian invasion.
Dalhoff said: 'It's very bittersweet as we've had a lot of joy here but we face horrors at home in Ukraine. Life is so odd now. We were in the middle of enjoying a cosy meal with friends in Doncaster last night and our mobiles started bleeping to alert us of an air-raid attack at home.
'We own a couple of horses in Denmark, and a percentage of any winnings go to renovation work after the bombing of Ukraine. It helps a lot, and we've seen the difference it makes. We do humanitarian work in Ukraine and help as much as we can in any way. We'll be back home in Ukraine next week.'
Walsh hung up her riding boots at the Punchestown Festival in 2018, one year before her brother Ruby did the same. He third placed finish in the 2012 Grand National was the best any woman had achieved before Rachael Blackmore's 2021 win.
