The sales company owner

Goresbridge’s Martin Donohoe on starting with a donkey sale and the joys of a family business

- Catherine Austen

My family have owned Goresbridge since 1968, when it was started by my father Ned and mother Kitty. He had great foresight – at the time, sales of cattle were switching from fairs to marts, while in the horse world, only thoroughbreds were being sold at auction, not what we’d now call sport horses. He reasoned that if it could be done with cattle, it could be done with horses.

Some people said he was mad, which made him more determined. He turned a few pigsties at home into stables and it started from that. The rostrum was made from the car trailer, and one of the first things he sold was a donkey.

“The excitement in the build-up to a sale is like the days leading up to Christmas”

I was born in 1962, and was brought up alongside the sales. I always had an interest in ponies, and at each sale my father would sell a pony and buy a new one. That was a good learning curve, because I was on a new pony every couple of months. I remember the excitement in the build-up to a sale so well; it was like the days leading up to Christmas.