Ring turnover at Goffs last year plunged by 39% or €69m in "the most challenging" year in the 155 year history of the bloodstock auctioneering business.
Goffs ring turnover for the year fell to €106m, down from €175m.
Group chief executive of Goffs Henry Beeby said that in a normal year, such a revenue decline "would be bordering on catastrophic".
But he said the business's decisive actions on costs - which reduced costs by €5.3m - "allowed us to return a profit that looked unlikely at the start of the year".
The new accounts filed by Robert J Goff plc with the Companies Office show that pre-tax profits declined by 22% to €1.19m in the 12 months to the end of March this year.
Net revenues reduced by 34% from €17.48m to €11.53m.
In the year to March last, Goffs paid out no dividend but chairwoman Éimear Mulhearn said that the board would be recommending the payment of a dividend of 3 cent per share at its AGM.
In his statement accompanying the accounts, Mr Beeby stated that the €5.3m was cut from overheads and costs "by performing a line by line review of every area".
"Nothing was sacrosanct and that included significant remuneration reductions for every member of the Goffs payroll, all of which was received without complaint or question," he said.
Mr Beeby said that the end result for the year "we view with an equal measure of relief and satisfaction".
Mr Beeby said that sales wise, the biggest disappointment of the year was with the Orby and Sportman's Yearling sales that were relocated to Doncaster due to issues of overseas buyers arriving into Ireland.
Mr Beeby said that Orby is usually Goffs's biggest earning sale of the year.
"We would be remiss not to acknowledge that many felt we made the wrong call with our choice of venue for the sale and results would tend to back up that view," he said,
Mr Beeby said that Goffs experienced "a torrid two days of Orby" where sales fell by just shy of €20m with the average dropping by 35%.
"There is no disguising the disappointing nature of these results and we accept that there is a lot of work to do to rebuild the trust and loyalty of many of our vendors as they did not enjoy the level of trade that they expect from the Orby sale," he said.
Mr Beeby said that the pandemic has accelerated the introduction of the Goffs online sales platform.
He stated that since July 2020, €10m of horses have been sold accepting over 8,200 bids from buyers in 22 countries.
"This has been a vital lifeline to us," he stated.
In her statement, chairwoman Ms Mulhearn said that the board was satisfied "we outperformed budget, returned a trading profit, cash reserves remained strong and the debtor book performed satisfactorily."
Staff costs decreased from €5.29m to €4.3m as numbers employed declined from 92 to 81.
The staff costs include pay to directors which last year decreased from €1.22m to €1.08 million.
Pay to key management personnel last year reduced from €2.87m to €2.79m.
At the end of March last, Goffs had shareholder funds totalling €33.29m that included accumulated profits of €18m.
The firm's cash funds increased from €8.7m to €11.8m.
