IN THE wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the southern hemisphere's most prestigious Thoroughbred auction, the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale and a live auction, which has been conducted in Sydney for more than 100 years, will be for the first time run as an online auction.
Yesterday Inglis put out an announcement that due to further restrictions regarding the Covid-19 situation, "the Easter Yearling Sale will not proceed as a live auction but will instead proceed in an online format."
Exact details of how the auction will be conducted are yet to be announced.
Inglis is also currently re-evaluating the timing and format of its sales schedule for the remainder of the year.
Over $122m was generated from Inglis' 2019 Easter Yearling Sale, from its 343 sold lots - which was run for the first time in more recent decades for two days only.
Inglis had again adopted a two-day sale option for this year which was scheduled for its usual time-slot, Tuesday April 7 and 8, and which has 514 catalogued lots.
As usual, the catalogue includes several entries from interstate as well as from New Zealand the latter already closing its doors to the outside world.
Participants may recall another major industry interruption back in 2007 when the equine influenza hit our shores.
This led to all the following year's major sales being delayed by about three to four months, which now seems to pale into insignificance for what all of us are facing today.
