Prestigious nursery Knocktoran Stud sold for €4.3 million at public auction

Knocktoran Stud, the renowned County Limerick farm on which Brendan and Anne-Marie Hayes have bred numerous top-class horses including Classic winners Precieuse and Tie Black, was sold for €4.3 million in a public auction on Thursday.

The buyers of the 251-acre nursery, which features a stunning Georgian main house and has been in the Hayes’ ownership since 1987, were undisclosed but are believed to be a local family. The guide price had been €3.7m.

“That got the task accomplished,” Hayes reported after the auction, conducted by Coonan Property in the Castleroy Hotel in Limerick. “We were rather offering our life’s work on the altar. I won’t say it was stressful, but it has certainly been occupying the mind in recent weeks.

“Some very nice people appear to have bought the farm, and they say they’re going to keep it together as one property rather than dividing it up and selling bits and pieces of it. They really love it.”

Reflecting on the price, he added: “It was fair enough. It wasn’t a fantastic price and it wasn’t a weak price. I’d say they got value and we got a fair deal.”

Brendan and Anne-Marie will continue breeding thoroughbreds with their family under the banner of Cotton House from their second farm near Knocktoran, but they are also planning to give themselves more time to enjoy hobbies and travel.

“It’s onwards and upwards,” said Brendan. “We’re looking forward to it. I wouldn’t say it’s less pressure, but it will be less responsibility. We’ll be cooking in a smaller kitchen from now on, but it’s less work.

“The buyers have told us that we don’t have to leave the house immediately, we can stay until after Christmas, so that helps the transition too.”

The new owners of Knocktoran Stud could be provided with immediate evidence of what the farm’s land and facilities are capable of producing, as Galtres Stakes winner Sea Theme, bred by the Hayes family there, is a leading contender for the Princess Royal Stakes at Newmarket on Friday.

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