Redback On Top As Osarus Heats Up

REDBACK ON TOP AS OSARUS HEATS UP 
By Emma Berry 
One thing France does rather well is seaside bloodstock sales, and while Arqana’s elite August Sale in Deauville is high pressure for those involved, there’s a distinctly more relaxed air at La Teste de Buch, where rising sales company Osarus has held its flagship yearling sale for the past seven years. A Redback (GB) half-sister to listed winner Baie d’Honneur (Fr) (lot 115) initially left the ring unsold at €57,000, but after trade closed on Thursday evening was sold privately for that amount to Jean-Marie Callier. The Mandore-bred colt will remain in France to race. 
If the profile of Osarus is in the ascendant, the same can certainly be said for one of France’s leading young stallions, Le Havre (Ire), whose son out of Wysiwyg Lucky (Fr) (Ultimately Lucky) (lot 79) led proceedings during the first of two sessions when knocked down for €51,000. 
The colt’s buyer, Sylvain Vidal, knows his sire well, as the G1 Prix du Jockey Club winner has helped to put his burgeoning stallion operation at Haras de la Cauviniere on the map, not least through his dual Classic-winning daughter Avenir Certain (Fr), who was bred at the farm by Vidal’s wife Elisabeth. 
“Le Havre’s doing very well and this is a good-looking colt, very athletic, and I think he was good value at that price,” said Vidal of the Haras de Saint Arnout-consigned colt, the second foal of his listed-winning dam. Commenting on the expansion of Osarus’s September Sale, which has grown from 73 catalogued yearlings in 2008 to 285 this year, he added, “Osarus have done a good job–they have built new boxes here at the racecourse, which makes it easier for consignors and buyers, and the horses have been well presented. It’s going the right way.” 
With a larger number of horses catalogued, the first-day average was marginally down on the figure for the total sale last year at €16,549, as was the median at €13,000. A total of 102 horses sold Thursday for €1,722,500 and a clearance rate of 77%. 
For Normandy-based Brit Alec Waugh, a plot hatched at Goffs a few years ago reaped rewards in the ring at Osarus when his Siyouni (Fr) daughter of the Bering mare Tres Froide (Fr) (lot 59) fetched €50,000 to a bid from Marc-Antoine Berghracht of MAB Agency to become the most expensive filly of the session. 
“I bought the mare especially to go to Siyouni and he’s done so well with his first runners this year,” explained Waugh. “I’m delighted with that–she was a nice filly and I hoped she would make somewhere between €40,000 and €50,000.” 
MAB Agency was also the name on the docket of the 
Genesis Green Stud-bred Kheleyf colt (lot 95) offered through Haras des Loges, and another to reach the €50,000 mark. A son of the unraced Mtoto (GB) mare Ancestral Way (GB), the colt’s 3-year-old half-sister Lords Lane (GB) (Sulamani {Ire}) was a winner in France in July in the colors of Genesis Green matriarch Doreen Swinburn. 
Based towards the south of France near Bordeaux, the auction draws a decent selection of yearlings from southwestern farms, such as Haras des Granges and Haras des Faunes, along with plenty from the Normandy stronghold. As expected, many domestic trainers were in attendance and, with the word spreading about the sale, there was a decent smattering of trainers from England, including Harry Dunlop, Karl Burke, William Jarvis, Ilka Gansera Leveque and Paul Webber, as well as Spain’s champion trainer Guillermo Arizkorreta and Irish pinhookers Con Marnane and Katie Walsh. If there’s a horse sale taking place, Marnane is rarely far away and he has been a regular at Osarus since its inception. He said, “I think the quality has improved massively over the last few years and the horses are now much better presented. It’s a great sale to come to in a lovely part of the world.” 
Marnane was quick to prove his appreciation for the offerings when signing for the first lot through the ring, a filly by Le Havre already named Richeville (Fr), at €14,000, and later added another two yearlings to his list of purchases. 
French trainer Christophe Ferland, who guided top-notch 2-year-old Dabirsim (Fr) (Hat Trick {Jpn}) to glory in the G1 Prix Morny, didn’t have far to come to the sale as he trains at La Teste de Buch, and he went to €46,000 to add a robust daughter of Kendargent (Fr) (lot 56) to his team for next season. The March-born filly is the second foal of dual winner The Jostler (GB) (Dansili {GB}), a granddaughter of G1 Irish 1000 Guineas winner Front Row (GB) (Epaulette). 
“She has a really good physique and is by a seriously good stallion in Kendargent,” said the trainer. “Her half-sister, the mare’s first foal, has already run this season, which is a good sign. She’s been bought for Gerard Laboureau.” 
Jean-Claude Rouget also waded in for a Kendargent yearling, this one a colt (lot 71) named Desir Des Biefffes out of the once-raced Vespona (Fr) (Vespone {Ire}. He was bought from the Haras de l’Hotellerie draft for €40,000. Later in the day the stallion received a further thumbs-up from the French training fraternity when lot 113, a Kendargent filly out of the Barathea mare Bee Bee, and another to be offered by Jedburgh Stud and Haras d’Ellon, was bought by Carlos Lerner for €42,000. 
Commenting on a lively opening session in temperatures not far short of 30 degrees for much of the afternoon, Osarus director Emmanuel Viaud said, “It was very hot on the rostrum for us for a while and I was worried some people were falling asleep in the afternoon sun. We’re very pleased with the first day and there are still some very nice horses to come tomorrow. It was also pleasing to see a number of new faces buying at this sale for this first time, including Katie Walsh, Liam Norris and William Huntingdon, SackvilleDonald and Chantilly-based Japanese trainer Kobayashi Satoshi.” 
The second and final session of the Osarus Yearling Sale begins at midday today (local time).