The Magic Millions Sales are famous throughout the racing world for seeing some of the best racehorses in Australia and Malaysia going under the auctioneers hammer and this weekend on the beautiful Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, with the approval of the Australian Equestrian Federation (EA), performance horses went under the hammer!

Over the 22 years that Magic Millions sales have been running the turnover has risen from AUD20 million to AUD300 million with sales being held in Queensland, Adelaide, Perth, Tasmania and Penang in Malaysia.

With 109 entries in the performance horse sale, just 39 horses saw the hammer fall - while the remaining 59 were passed in or withdrawn prior to auction.

The highest priced horse was the 2003 grey mare (Endurance) which was sold to Dubai connections for AUD46,000 while the bargain of the sale has to have been the 2002 chestnut stallion (Endurance) who was knocked down to Natalie Fiocco for AUD400.

The average price paid at the sale was AUD10,600 with AUD413,400 being raised in total from the 39 horses sold.

Australian's bought 25 horses while 11 horses will head to Korea and 3 will move to Dubai.

Bargains were definitely on offer this weekend on the Gold Coast and one we will no doubt hear about is the beautiful 12 year old Concorde mare, showjumper Flowervale Concorde who was sold for AUD22,000 and will head to Korea.

This is the first sale of its kind in Australia in that it was backed by Magic Millions and the Equestrian Federation - no doubt those involved including the Selection and Promotions people for each of the disciplines will have learned a great deal from this first sale and hopefully it will continue and grow in prestige and success, presenting a great platform for performance disciplines to attract buyers from around the world, in the same way the racing fraternity flock.

Showjumping was the only discipline represented by two riders, with Adam Mellers in charge of selections for sale and Vicki Roycroft in charge of promotions.

Dressage - Brett Parbery

Polo - Ginger Hunt

Eventing - Tim Boland

Showhorses - Kim Durante

Endurance - Peter Toft.

No doubt the debrief will show up where some of the issues were and hopefully the performance horses will again be under the auction hammer in 2010 with a better result, while it must be remembered that this was possibly not the best year to begin as the world is suffering under one of the worst global financial recessions on record, which would no doubt have affected sales.

Australia is now breeding some high quality performance horses, but it is often difficult to attract European buyers as it is such a long trip and often it is hard to ensure that all horses are in the one place avoiding the need to travel great distances to view available horses.

If the Magic Millions Sales performance horse sale takes off it will no doubt make it much more appealing for European buyers to make the trip to Australia.