Wooded

A share in Zarak (lot 1) anchors the Arqana Online January Sale catalogue. The sale is set for Monday, January 19 from 3-5 p.m. local time. One of the best stallions in France, the son of Dubawi has sired 11% stakes winners per runners and 72% winners to runners from all his crops. Among his best progeny is the French 2000 Guineas winner Metropolitan, as well as fellow Group 1 winners Haya Zark and Zagrey. Zarak's yearlings sold for up to €1.1 million last term. Another highlight of the sale...

   Zelzal, who will stand for an unchanged fee of €10,000, anchors Al Shaqab Racing's Haras de Bouquetot roster next year. Jour de Galop first reported the news. The 12-year-old son of Sea The Stars has sired 11 stakes winners to date and has a trio of Group/Grade 3 winners to his credit in Dolce Zel, Short Final and Ouraika. Wooded, who sired G1 Prix Jean Prat hero Woodshauna this season, will also stand for his 2025 price at €7,000. Priced at €5,000 in his first year at stud, Al...

The catalogue for Arqana Online's November Sale, featuring 19 lots including a breeding right in Group 1 sire Mehmas (lot 1) is now online. The sale will be held from 4-6 p.m. French time on November 27 and features stallion shares and breeding rights. A total of 15 shares and breeding rights are Flat oriented, with a breeding right to fellow Group 1 sire Space Blues (lot 4) also on offer, beside a breeding right to group sire Palace Pier (lot 8). Mehmas has 47 stakes winners, nine of them...

The breeding game's loss could be the racetrack's gain after Amo Racing revealed on Tuesday that Group 1-winning sprinter Bucanero Fuerte (GB) has made a return to training with Adrian Murray following an unsuccessful stint at stud. Big things had been expected from Bucanero Fuerte at Tally-Ho Stud, where he had been advertised at an opening fee of €12,500. However, after failing to get a single mare in foal, he is back in full training and connections are quietly hopeful that the hugely-talented son of Wootton Bassett (GB) can make...

DEAUVILLE, France--First went the Irish, then the French. For some, it was a woeful weekend in the sporting world outside horseracing as the Rugby World Cup quarter finals left only England standing among the European nations to go forward to the next round at the Stade de France.  Plenty of sales folk huddled around the screen at Deauville racecourse on Sunday evening to see the home team's dreams shattered, but by Monday morning the focus was fully back on the horses and the next week of yearling action ahead.  Before...

It has been a year to remember for Robson Aguiar, largely down to the exploits of Amo Racing's breakthrough Group 1 winner Bucanero Fuerte (GB) (Wootton Bassett {GB}), who he sourced for Kia Joorabchian's ownership vehicle.  The ultra-shrewd Brazilian native snapped up a colt by Wooded (Ire), who is a brother to Amo's Phoenix S. hero, for €88,000 on day two of the Tattersalls Ireland September Yearling Sale and revealed afterwards that the plan was to go breezing for his new recruit.  "I bought him for myself and he will...

DEAUVILLE, France--The return to the V2 Sale at Arqana worked wonders for the middle market trade on Tuesday with eight six-figure lots going through the ring on a day where over €5.5m was spent on 141 yearlings.  The V2 Sale was replaced by the September Sale 12 months ago due to an oversupply of yearlings but an average price of less than €20,000 on 202 horses sold brought an abrupt end to the new concept. With the Tuesday average over double that of last year's September Yearling Sale, reverting to...

DEAUVILLE, France--In a departure from the normal schedule, Arqana's August extravaganza kicks off a day early this year, on Friday. With a handful of shows having taken place on Tuesday, viewing began in earnest on Wednesday morning, with Joseph O'Brien first out of the blocks and on parade at the Haras des Capucines draft while most people were still having breakfast. While many of the families of the horses catalogued will be familiar to potential purchasers, each new season brings with it a wave of new stallion names to grapple...

The catalogue has been released for Arqana's August Yearling Sale with 314 yearlings set to sell during the three-day sale, scheduled for Aug. 18-20. Beginning the day after the first running of the Arqana Series and during Deauville's La Touques August race meet, the sale includes 18 siblings to Group 1 winner, including Pearls Galore (lot 11, by Kingman), Wooded (lot 214, by Dubawi) and Native Trail (lot 308, by Cracksman). The three sessions are scheduled to take place: Friday, Aug. 18 - 3pm - Lot 1 -134 Saturday, Aug....

It never ceases to amaze how much debate the two-year-old races at Royal Ascot generate each year. A quick scan on racing Twitter over the past few days confirmed as much.  For all the fascinating puzzles that the royal meeting will serve up this week, including whether Paddington (GB) (Siyouni {Fr}) can cope with Chaldean (GB) (Frankel {GB}) in the St James's Palace, what will reign supreme in the Prince Of Wales's or if any of the Australian sprinters can land a blow in the King's Stand S., it's the...

Is it just me or should France be known as the bloodstock land of opportunity? This is the country that saw Wootton Bassett (GB) and Walk In The Park (Ire) pull themselves up by the bootstraps after entering the stud book at relatively modest sums. There are few serious racing nations that provide as much of a chance for a stallion to flourish than France does. Take Kauto Star (Fr), the greatest staying chaser of the modern era, as an example. He hailed from the largely unheralded Village Star (Fr)...

The mighty Sea The Stars (Ire) seems to have had more sons retired to the National Hunt stallion division than to the Flat, and he is of course represented by some notable new recruits to the stallion ranks this year in Britain in two of his most celebrated sons, Baaeed (GB) and Stradivarius (GB). Another son, Crystal Ocean (GB), topped the charts for the number of mares covered in Britain and Ireland in 2022, though of those 338 he of course covered predominantly jump mares at the Beeches Stud in...