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Irish Derby Third French Claim Sold To Saudi Arabia At Tattersalls

Last year's Irish Derby third French Claim (Fr) (French Fifteen {Fr}) was sold to continue his career in Saudi Arabia at the Tattersalls August Sale and was one of eight six-figure lots to go through the ring on Friday.

Bloodstock agent Marco Bozzi bought French Claim (lot 195) and recent winner Pivotal Revive (GB) (Pivotal {GB}) (lot 114) on behalf of Prince Saud Bin Salman and SBS Global.

French Claim, who was trained by Paddy Twomey to win three times and achieve a rating of 108, was sold for 115,000gns while the Jessica Harrington-trained Pivotal Revive was a narrow winner of a Leopardstown maiden on his fourth start last time and commanded 100,000gns.

Speaking about the latter, Bozzi said, “He is for my client Prince Saud Bin Salman and SBS Global. The horse will go to Saudi for the autumn season. He is by Pivotal, looks progressive, is a nice type and vetted well.

“He will be trained by the prince's trainer Ahmad Abdulwahed, who trained Emblem Road (Quality Road) to Saudi Cup success. The trainer will make a plan for the colt once the horse settles into the new routine.”

On French Claim, the agent added, “Prince Saud Bin Salman loved the horse, he liked the rating and his races. The horse is very nice, he moves very well. In Saudi they don't really have such fast ground and the dirt is quite deep at both Riyadh and Taif so it might work for him. He has not run since April, but his trainer [Paddy Twomey] said that as the ground has been too fast for him.”

It was the twice-raced Maximum Dividend (Ire) (lot 287), an American Pharoah colt owned by the Coolmore partners, who topped the sale at 200,000gns when selling to Sam Haggas on behalf of Australian trainer John O'Shea.

That sale rounded off a busy afternoon for Haggas, operating under the Hurworth Bloodstock banner, who said he expects the Richard Hannon-trained Maximum Dividend to progress with racing for his new connections.

Haggas said, “He is the first foal out of a good staying Galileo (Ire) mare and by a sire whose stock improves a lot with age–American Pharoah himself got better with racing. I hope this horse will do the same and is going to be a horse to improve from two to three and a bit beyond–and stay a bit further than the seven furlongs.

“He has run two very good races, the first was particularly eye-catching at Sandown and the form looks good. The winner goes for the Solario tomorrow and the third is a Listed winner. He is sound and looks sound of mind, too.”

He added, “Maximum Dividend is a nice straightforward horse who I hope will go and do well in Australia. He is going into training with John O'Shea and I have been working with him and his team. I like this horse's profile–he should improve and if he does he should be competitive for his new connections.”

Of the 354 horses catalogued, just 237 were offered and 189 sold (80%). The aggregate was down 39% on last year's figures to 3,235,700gns while the average fell 29% to 17,120gns. The median was 8,000gns.

Tattersalls chairman Edmond Mahony commented, “This is only the fourth renewal of the Tattersalls August Sale and numerically the smallest and while we may have been a little short of obvious stars there has been solid demand throughout the day with overseas buyers very much to the fore.

“Typically for sales of this nature at Tattersalls, buyers from throughout the Gulf region have been particularly active, most notably from Saudi Arabia where the racing continues to go from strength to strength. European, Australian and American buyers have also been active and the domestic demand, both Flat and National Hunt, has been evident at all levels of the market as has the widespread use of the online bidding platform which continues to prove its worth in a busy sales calendar.”

He added, “While the figures have fallen short of previous renewals of the Tattersalls August Sale, the fixture offers a valuable service for owners and trainers and is immediately followed by the Tattersalls Somerville Yearling Sale, which takes place on Tuesday, Sept. 5 and has enjoyed a run of spectacular results in recent weeks.

“The Group and Grade 1 winners Bradsell (GB) and Anisette (GB) have flown the Somerville flag at the very highest level in Britain and America alongside last week's G2 Lowther winner Relief Rally (Ire) and G3 Tattersalls Acomb winner Indian Run (Ire) and we look forward to building on this success next week.”

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Flexjet Named Official Sponsor Of The Arqana August Sale

Flexjet, a private jet company, is the official partner of the Arqana August Sale which begins its three-day run in Deauville on Saturday. The private jet provider will offer a magnum of champagne to the buyers of every yearlings sold for €500,000 or more and to the top vendor of each day. In addition, the Flexjet team will be on hand throughout the sale to share a drink in Yard A or at the bar, Le 360.

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Tattersalls August Catalogue Released Online

The catalogue for the Tattersalls August Sale, which takes place on August 31, is now online and can be viewed at www.tattersalls.com.

A total of 360 lots will be on offer, comprising 246 colts and geldings in and out of training and 107 fillies in and out of training as well as six broodmares.

This year's edition of the Tattersalls August Sale has attracted consignments from many of the world's foremost owners and breeders, including drafts from Godolphin and Juddmonte Farms, as well as many of the UK and Ireland's leading trainers.

Highlights of the catalogue include the three-year-old filly Rolling The Dice (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}), who was third in the Group 2 May Hill S. as a two-year-old and who comes from a deep Juddmonte family and Jessica Harrington's G3 Boomerang S. winner Real Appeal (Ger) (Sidestep {Aus}). Group 3 Amethyst S. winner Pretreville (Fr) (Acclamation {GB}) was also purchased at the Tattersalls August Sale for 95,000 gns.

Tattersalls Chairman Edmond Mahony said, “The Tattersalls August Sale was introduced for the first time in 2020 in response to COVID-related circumstances, but the enthusiasm for the sale from both vendors and purchasers over the last two years has made it an easy decision to make it a permanent fixture.”

He added, “We are delighted to catalogue 360 lots that will appeal to a wide cross section of buyers, both domestic and further afield. The slightly reduced catalogue size also means that the sale will be able to take place on just one day, Wednesday 31st August.”

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Powell Discusses Changes to Arqana Yearling Sales Calendar

Careful readers of the Arqana website–or those caught booking a house too early in Deauville for the summer sales–will have noticed some significant changes in the French sales calendar this year. For the past several years, the two-day select, or Part I, yearlings in the August sale sold in the evening, then were followed by an all-day open session, and then the V2, a sale targeted to more regional buyers. In all, three different classes of yearlings were sold over four days.

For 2022, the Arqana team has taken the select yearlings and has broken them up into three days: Saturday, Aug. 13 (160 yearlings starting at 2 p.m.), Sunday, Aug. 14 (80 yearlings starting at 5:30 p.m.) and Monday, Aug. 15 (80 yearlings starting at 5:30 p.m.)

Some of the former Part II yearlings will be combined with those who would have previously sold in the V2, and will be offered in a new September Yearling sale scheduled for Sept. 8-9. The traditional October yearling sale takes place from the 17^th to the 21^st.

While the sales company made the announcement in a press release in February, it was overlooked by some vendors and buyers. As the Arqana team conducts yearling inspections, Freddy Powell, the Executive Director of Arqana, took a moment to explain the motives behind the changes and what attendees could expect.

Powell said he expects the sales makeup to be a mix of precocious international and top French yearlings in August, and domestic yearlings aimed at domestic buyers in September.

Part of the impetus for the change starts with the French calendar; Assumption Day, a major public holiday in France, is Monday, Aug. 15, with most stores and businesses closed.

“It's a tradition in France to have very good racing on this bank holiday,” said Powell, reached in Ireland on a yearling inspection tour, “and therefore, we could not spend all afternoon selling our Part II yearlings.”

Another issue was stabling, which is limited to around 320 stalls on the sales grounds. “We are limited to the number of horses we can have on site,” said Powell. “In the end, it wasn't very fair to vendors selling on Monday to ship in on Sunday. We had lovely horses on Monday that buyers couldn't properly see. If we can't expose them properly, we are not doing our job.”

Horses on the beach at Deauville | Patty Wolfe photo

Adding additional stalls is not an option, he said, due to their limited space. “The great upside to being in town is that people can walk in and out. They can be on the beach at 3, and at the sale at 3:15. But at the same time, it limits the space we have.” For the December sale, horses can stable across the street at the racetrack, which is not an option when racing is being conducted in the summer.

Last year, 355 yearlings were catalogued for the main sale, and another 150 in the V2.

This year, the August sale will be limited to 320-330, and another 250-280 will sell in September. Around 50-60 of those traditional August horses will divert to September or October.

“These (yearlings moving to September) were mature, precocious types, which typically sold in August, and so we decided to create a sale in September for these 200 yearlings,” said Powell. “We will probably be able to add another 50-80 to make it a two-day sale. The profile we are looking for in September are mature yearlings who do not have to wait for the October sale. They don't necessary need a precocious pedigree; it will be a mix of V2, August Part 2 and October yearlings who have the maturity to sell five to six weeks before the October sale.”

The August sale will occur, says Powell, “in the middle of a great weekend racing with the Prix Jacques Le Marois on the Sunday and many stakes races on both days.”

A customer-service oriented company, Arqana will help to facilitate travel arrangements for international buyers. Interested parties should contact Amy Lanigan at alanigan@arqana.com.

But change is sometimes hard for people to accept, and Powell was asked if he felt people would be open to the new format.

“It's a new thing, so there's always an unknown, but the numbers are growing every year in entries in the sales, and we wanted to try this. I think the buyers and the vendors understand it, but the unknown is always a concern. They understand why we're doing it, mostly for logistical reasons. But in tidying up the number for August, we just have to target the numbers per sale rightly, so every horse has his place.”

The leading consignor at the sale for the past several years with his Ecurie des Monceaux consignment has been Henri Bozo, who gave the new idea his stamp of approval.

“I think it's good that Arqana has got its two main yearling sales quite far from each other in terms of time,” said Bozo. “I like the fact that there is an August sale in the middle of the fantastic race meeting. I know it's early, but it has been a successful sale in producing top-class horses. I think it's going to be nice to have three days of yearlings at the same level, and maybe open up the selection a bit more, because in the past there were times where there wasn't a lot of difference between some of the Part II horses and the Part I horses. It's the summer, you have a sale with more precocious types, and it has gone from strength to strength in the last two years.”

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