By MIKE HILL
BREEDERS and owners are showing enormous interest in the upcoming Ipswich Puppy Auction, says club president Rob Essex.
And it’s no wonder.
Greyhounds sold at the October 9 sales will be racing for a $100,000 winner’s purse in the 2024 series.
That’s more than double the current prizemoney for the feature that was first run in 1989.
Essex said the interest from interstate was building by the week.
“I spoke to David Grant, from Orange in NSW, who said he had seven pups that he was sending up to the auction.
“And he said they were all for sale, while Michael Patterson told me at Albion Park last week that he has pups for sale.”
Essex reminded all owners and breeders that they only had a few weeks to nominate their pups for the auction.
“Nominations close on Saturday, August 13,” he said.
Essex had foreshadowed the prizemoney boost during his address at the club’s big 40th anniversary meeting earlier in the year.
It’s a bold and challenging move by the club as it strives to satisfy both breeders and buyers.
The prizemoney breakdown for the 2024 Auction Series will be $100,000 to the winner, $25,000 for second, $12,500 for third and $6250 for fourth.
Pups, which must have been whelped between October 1, 2021, and June 1, 2022, will be nominated in one of two classifications – for sale only or breeder buy-in and the breeder’s bonus for the winner has been lifted to $10,000 with $500 going to the breeders of all the other finalists.