Niels Bruynseels : “From promising competition talents to reliable amateur jumpers, we personally guarantee that the horses in our selection have all it takes to make their new owners happy.” Boxing Day is set to be the exciting culmination of this equestrian year: on 26 December, Auction Mechelen starts auctioning off 19 top-tier 2- and 3-year-old jumping horses.
For the first time, the auction will take place online. The horses on offer span a great variety, from impressive talents to solid amateur horses. Every buyer is certain to be purchasing a top-class horse, since the organising team personally visited all the candidate breeders repeatedly to come to their final selection.
The selected horses managed to convince a six-strong jury of expert trainers, traders and breeders. One of them is renowned rider Niels Bruynseels. The horse trade was part and parcel of his upbringing and is still his bread and butter today.
How did you come to your selection this year?
“In this strange year, we wanted to do something special for our Belgian breeders and horse keepers – especially when Jumping Mechelen had to be cancelled. An online auction is a great corona-proof option. Unfortunately, organising qualifier competitions like in 2019 wasn’t an option, so we had to hit the road. That was quite the logistical challenge, since we had over 100 candidates to vet. In several regions, we organised vetting days without audience. This brought us to a selection of 40 handsome horses. We visited each of those in person a second time, to come to our final pick of 19.”
What is the hallmark of these selected horses?
“They are of top quality, we can absolutely guarantee that. We are only presenting 19 horses, a small selection – which demonstrates how high we raised our selection bar. Whether they are promising jumping talents or reliable amateurs, our selected horses have all the necessary qualities to become a success story for their new owners.”