Arqana October Yearling Sale

DEAUVILLE, France--Everything changes, especially the format of bloodstock sales, and Arqana's five-day Octoberfest is no exception. This year Part I has been extended to two days from one, and after the first session in Deauville on Monday, it is probably also fair to say that the more things change the more they stay the same. Sea The Stars (Ire) was the sire of the top lot. Ecurie des Monceaux, that juggernaut of a French sales consignment, was the session's leading vendor, and Stroud Coleman Bloodstock the leading buyer, but Haras...

DEAUVILLE, France--The broodmare shopping spree of Leopoldo Fernandez Pujals several years ago has already resulted in his first homebred Group 1 winner, Blue Rose Cen (Ire) (Churchill {Ire}), a daughter of the Jeremy mare Queen Blossom (Ire) who heads next to the Breeders' Cup at Keeneland.  It was next door to that track that Fernandez Pujals, who operates as Yeguada Centurion, bought Needmore Flattery (Flatter) from Lane's End Farm in 2019. That same year she had foaled a Gun Runner colt, who was later named Taiba and went on to...

The catalogue for the five-day Arqana October Yearling Sale, featuring 781 lots, is now online. Past graduates of the sale, held from Oct. 17-21 this year, brought home a quartet of group/graded victories this last weekend, with Jadoomi (Fr) (Holy Roman Emperor {Ire}) and Iresine (Fr) (Manduro {Ger}) winning at the Group 2 level in Ireland and France, respectively. Stateside, Bran (Fr) (Muhaarar {GB}) claimed the GII Turf Sprint S. and Avenue De France (Fr) (Cityscape {GB}) landed the GII John C. Mabee S. Beginning at 11 a.m. on Monday,...

DEAUVILLE, France--Zarak (Fr), the Aga Khan Studs' beautifully bred son of Dubawi (Ire) and Arc heroine Zarkava (Fr), has made a promising start with his first 2-year-old runners this season and currently has 11 winners to his name from 26 runners. At the weekend he was represented by his first stakes winner when the Gestut Haus Zoppenbroich homebred Lizaid (Ger) the G3 Preis der Winterkonigin for Peter Schiergen at Baden-Baden, while another recent winner, Zagrey (Fr), gave an important update to the filly who topped trade as Part III of...

DEAUVILLE, Newmarket--By the end of the second session of the Arqana October Sale, turnover had already passed the 2020 total for all five days, and trade continued to bowl along in a similarly upbeat fashion on Wednesday with another €4,744,000 added to the overall tally which has just passed the €25-million mark. To put that in context, the current aggregate has been achieved from the sale of 424 yearlings so far this week. Last year, €18,617,000 was paid for 578 horses, and from a significantly smaller sale in 2019, €17,456,500...

DEAUVILLE, France--In weather that wouldn't have felt out of place for Arqana's August Sale, the sales ground in Deauville was bathed in warm sunshine on Tuesday while trade in the ring continued to be similarly encouraging. There was a time when Elusive City, at €15,000, was the most expensive stallion at stud in France. Much has changed in the intervening decade and the former Haras d'Etreham stallion was lost to the local breeding industry when suffering a heart attack in 2019 after standing ten seasons in France. But he was...

DEAUVILLE, France--A strong opening day of the Arqana October Sale saw a colt by Camelot (GB) top proceedings at €440,000, bought late in the session by Nicolas de Watrigant of Mandore International Agency on behalf of MV Magnier. Consigned by the leading vendor Ecurie des Monceaux, lot 209 is a half-brother to the listed Prix Michel Houyvet winner Big Blue (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}). As has been seen throughout the European yearling season so far, there was a buoyant level of trade in Deauville on Monday, with figures exceeding the pre-pandemic...

DEAUVILLE, France—A numerically enhanced Arqana October Sale drew to a close in Deauville on Friday with encouraging figures in a year which cannot shake off the spectre of Covid-19. As 9pm curfews are about to be reinstated across the regions of France where the virus is spreading most quickly, the curtain has come down just in time on the major yearling sales of the season. What the situation will be come the breeding stock sales is anyone's guess but, for now, Arqana has managed to stage its October Sale in...

DEAUVILLE, France—The prices may have dipped significantly at Arqana on the Thursday but the activity at the sales grounds did not. If anything there were more people in attendance than on previous days, with the boost in French 2-year-old premiums to 70% perhaps acting as an incentive for owners to take a chance on a prospect for next season. Certainly buyers were out in force and the clearance rate climbed again for this third tier of the sale, though it has to be said that not many below the top...

DEAUVILLE, France—The second part of the Arqana October Yearling Sale concluded on Wednesday with consistent results across the two-day section. Again, the clearance rate was encouragingly high at 82%, with 131 horses sold for €3,179,000 at an average of €24,269 and median of €20,000. Lope De Vega (Ire) had been represented by his fifth juvenile stakes winner of the season when Godolphin's unbeaten Parchemin (Ire) landed the listed Prix Isonomy at Deauville and several hours later across the road at Arqana, another of the stallion's young chestnut sons led the...

DEAUVILLE, France—France is one of the few countries in Europe where it is still relatively easy for people to go racing, so a short stroll down the road to Hippodrome La Touques from the Arqana sales complex was a perfect pre-sales outing, with the day's two black-type races well timed to be observed before action got underway in the ring. The winner of the G3 Prix des Reservoirs, Rougir (Fr) (Territories {Ire}), not only provided her first-season sire Territories (Ire) with his first group winner but also gave a boost...

DEAUVILLE, France—With a pedigree that certainly would not look out of place at Arqana's August Sale, Ecurie des Monceaux's Siyouni (Fr) colt out of Prudente (Fr) (Dansili {GB}) set a new October Sale record in Deauville when selling to Al Shaqab for €525,000. Hailing from the farm which supplied this year's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Sottsass (Fr) by the same stallion, the April-foaled sale-topper (lot 157) became the subject of a bidding duel between Al Shaqab and Godolphin, with the Qatari operation placing a late final offer of...