Arqana Breeze-up Sale

For the second consecutive year, a daughter of Sioux Nation had Roderic Kavanagh and Cormac O'Flynn of Glending Stables celebrating a seven-figure windfall at the Arqana Breeze-up Sale when lot 82 was knocked down to Anthony Stroud for €1,100,000. Twelve months ago, it was a similar story when Stroud struck the winning bid of €1,000,000 for a Sioux Nation filly from the Kildaragh Stud draft. Later named Zanthos, she returns to France this weekend as a leading contender for Sunday's Poule d'Essai des Pouliches in the Victorious Forever silks, having...

Local breeze-up handler Philip Prevost-Baratte and Arqana President Olivier Delloye share their thoughts ahead of the Arqana Breeze-Up Sale Given the breeze-up market is ruled by stopwatches and split seconds, it would be easy to assume there is no longer a space for old-school horsemanship and taking your time - yet Philip Prevost-Baratte proves otherwise.  The Frenchman does not compete in the breeze. In fact, it wouldn't be uncommon to see all of the Prevost-Baratte horses occupy the slowest times at the majority of the sales. Yet, it proves no...

More questions than answers have been generated from a shaky start to the breeze-up season and now the focus turns to Deauville, where the Arqana Breeze-Up Sale will provide the clearest barometer yet about the overall health within that sector.  Boutique by design, Arqana boasts a broad international reach underpinned by a stellar roll of honour - last year's 2,000 Guineas winner Ruling Court, the ill-fated champion two-year-old Gewan and even this year's 2,000 Guineas third Distant Storm were all sourced here within the past couple of years.  This is...

In terms of the horses themselves, Americans of due adventure could hardly have more compelling incentives to prospect the Arqana Breeze-Up Sale. Last year's auction was staged immediately after Kentucky-bred Ruling Court (Justify) vindicated his status as the record-breaking sale-topper of 2024 by winning the G1 2,000 Guineas, while GI Preakness Stakes winner War of Will (War Front) is among those American-bred graduates to have excelled back on native soil. But this time round there is a fresh spur to American interest. Because even as sires like Justify have finally...

Over 200 two-year-olds, one of them a St Mark's Basilica half-brother to G1 Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck (Galileo), have been catalogued for the Arqana Breeze-Up Sale. Breezes will take place over the Deauville turf on Thursday May 7 from midday, before the sale begins at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 9. Set to sell as lot 174, the bay is also a half-brother to G1 Railway Stakes heroine Bounding (Lonhro), while multiple group winner and sire Kuroshio is under the second dam. Other choice lots include lot 19, a...

It was another memorable year on the breeze-up circuit for Willie Browne and 79-year-old joined this month's TDN Conversations podcast with Brian Sheerin to discuss his latest success and his storied background in the business.

Mocklershill maestro Willie Browne was responsible for the fourth seven-figure lot of the sale at Arqana on Saturday as his colt by Siyouni went the way of MV Magnier for €1 million. Lot 164, from the family of the G1 Sussex Stakes winner and sire Mohaather, was previously a €290,000 purchase at the Arqana October Yearling Sale. It was yet another lucrative result this year for Browne, who also sold a son of Acclamation for 1.4 million gns at the Tattersalls Craven Breeze-up Sale, having sourced said colt for just...

By Brian Sheerin and Emma Berry Cormac Farrell was left flabbergasted after bringing the Arqana Breeze-up Sale-topping figure of €1.9 million for a Night Of Thunder colt who went the way of Godolphin and summed up the outstanding piece of business as "the stuff of dreams". Out of Date With Destiny, the only foal that the chronically subfertile George Washington sired, the Night Of Thunder colt was picked up by Farrell for 90,000gns at Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale.  Speaking of the monumental profit, he said, "It's...

Deauville, FRANCE-Talk about timing. The Arqana Breeze-Up Sale will get underway a week to the day after star graduate Ruling Court did his thing in the 2,000 Guineas. Take that result and couple it with the fact the sales results at the breeze-up sales in America and Europe have been off the charts this year, there is rightly optimism in the Deauville air.  Three horses made more than a million-including Ruling Court who sold to Godolphin at €2.3 million-at the breeze-up sales last year. That figure has already been equalled...

DEAUVILLE, France -- Plenty of people will be cheering on the two runners of Charlie Fellowes in the French Classics on Sunday, not least because the trainer has booked Kieran Shoemark for both horses after a tumultuous week for the jockey. But there will be one person hoping perhaps harder than any for dream results for Luther in the Poule d'Essai des Poulains and Shes Perfect in the Poule d'Essai des Pouliches and that's Will Douglass, the agent responsible for matching each horse to their respective owners. Douglass is a...

Deauville, FRANCE-The breeze-up circus rolls onto Arqana this week and, following the breeze on Thursday, where 162 of some of the best-bred horses in Europe were put through their paces, a number of key industry stakeholders weighed in on what might come to fruition this week.  From market predictions, to revealing their highs and lows of the breeze-up season thus far, heavyweights Roger O'Callaghan, Roderic Kavanagh, Tessa Greatrex, Valfredo Valiani and Matt Coleman have answered some of the key questions ahead of what promises to be another blockbuster sale on...

Three wildcards have been released for next week's Arqana Breeze-Up Sale, which takes place between May 8 and 10 in Deauville.  Among the three two-year-olds that have been added to the sale is the Oak Tree Farm-consigned Wootton Bassett colt [lot 194] out of the Listed-placed Materialistic.  A grandson of Group winner and Group 1-placed Pongee, the colt hails from the family of Pacifique, Prudenzia, Paix, Magic Wand, Chicquita and Philomene.   In addition, a daughter of Lucky Vega (lot 195) will be offered from Bansha House Stables. The well-bred filly...