Gotta Havre Her

Gotta Havre Her… 
The China Horse Club signaled its love affair with leading French sire Le Havre (Ire) when signing for the top three lots–all by the sire–at Arqana’s Arc Sale in October, and the club’s bloodstock agent Michael Wallace was back in the fray for another pricey lot by the sire of dual Classic winner Avenir Certain (Fr) when extending to €420,000 for the stakes-winning filly Summer Surprice (Fr) (lot 161). 

Trained by Francis-Henri Graffard as a homebred for Team Hogdala AB, Summer Surprice won the Listed Grand Prix Du Lion D’Angers July 22 and was second in the Listed Prix Charlies-Laffitte Oct. 1, with Jiayuguan (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}), owned in part by the China Horse Club, back in third. Summer Surprice was most recently seventh in the G1 Premio Longines Lydia Tesio in Italy Oct. 26. 

After outing Hubie DeBurgh for the daughter of Summer Exhibition (GB) (Royal Academy), Wallace noted Summer Surprice would stay in training. 

“She’s a lovely filly,” he said. “We knew a bit about her from when she ran second in a listed race–we had a runner of our own that ran third. She’s a quality filly and it looks like she’s got the best in front of her. We see a bit of upside in her so we look forward to seeing what we can do.” 

Wallace said Summer Surprice “has options” with regards to where she continues her racing career. 

“We’ll talk through a couple options with her,” he said. “There are two or three options for her at the moment–there’s no rush, it’s the off season now, so we’ll see what the next week or two brings and then sort it out.” 

Summer Surprice, who was consigned by Coulonces Consignment, is from the family of sires Zafonic and Zamindar.