Capucines Adapting to Remain in Full Bloom

DEAUVILLE, France — Everything changes; everything stays the same.

Here's Eric Puerari, rounding off another sales season, his Haras des Capucines consignment an unmissable fixture right next to the parade ring at Arqana. Yet once again, on the eve of the auction, Puerari will on Friday have noticed new faces, making their serious, frowning notes as his mares are led up and down. Will these last any longer than some who surfaced in the previous cycle? Who can say? Plenty of them, Puerari acknowledges, have an authentically competent, dynamic air. Types to keep the old guard on their toes.

“That's the biggest change, the rotation of people that are active,” he says. “When I started, in '95, the newest breeder before me had been Aliette Forien, 10 years previously. Now it feels like we have 10 farms setting up every year. All with quality people, with ambition, putting nice structures in place. And the change among the purchasing entities is just as fast. Sometimes, by the time you get to know someone, they've already disappeared—and yet another has come along in their place. It's impressive, such constant renewal. But it's also the biggest challenge today, to keep pace with so much change.”

Yet whatever people do, in their quest for an edge, one thing abides. Because no software programme, no metric, no business model will remove an 'x' from the equation—and that is the imponderable mystery of the Thoroughbred itself. 

“I think the attraction of horses is precisely that technique doesn't actually have much effect,” Puerari says. “People think they can find new ways of doing things, and we have made some progress on a few points. But in the end it always comes down to the same thing: it's always man-and-horse, with a little handling, and the care you take about that. But the main part is intangible.”

That doesn't prevent Puerari and his Capucines partners—co-founder Michel Zerolo, and now an additional investor in Philippe Lazare—from recognising the commercial imperatives arising from this flux of challenge and opportunity. Their own operation is expanding, evolving, adapting to shifts in the marketplace. On the one hand, they have hired Jean-Daniel Manceau to direct a new venture, Capucines Bloodstock; on the other, Puerari himself is devoting himself more than ever to the farm, in order to support increasing volume and welcome new clients.

“Jean-Daniel is a promising young man,” Puerari says. “He can help us propose nominations, find ideas, buy horses privately for clients. Today you have to be wide open, prepared to try different things. Because as I said, this business is moving very fast. There are a lot of creative, enterprising young people, travelling the world over. So we have to renew our concept a little. Our target is not to follow all the trends, but to try and have some foresight, see how things are developing, and give appropriate options to our clients.” 

For the core business, meanwhile, Capucines has leased an extra 50 hectares to take the aggregate up to 250—that is, over 600 acres—grazed by 80 mares, some owned by the partners, some with old friends like Dominique Hazan and Ariane Gravereaux, some boarded by the likes of Peter Brant. (These latter, incidentally, include a number in foal to Demarchelier (GB), the son of Dubawi (GB) standing at Claiborne. “We're very impressed by his stock,” Puerari says. “We've raised four of his yearlings, and one has already gone on to be Group-placed, and another looks Group class as well.”)

The Capucines team has also been central to the transfer of Muhaarar (GB) to Haras du Petit Tellier, Shadwell having agreed to sell a 50% stake.

The return is quicker, if you can run early, and the programme especially in England is oriented that way. But you can see that the Classic stables are not that way, nor the Japanese—and the Japanese probably have the best horses in the world now.

“This was Michel's idea, because he was following his results,” Puerari says. “We're grateful to have secured a group of French breeders to support him. He's a very interesting stallion, very like his broodmare sire Linamix (Fr) in that he can throw very different types: horses with speed, horses with stamina, durable horses that run well in America. It's nice for France to have a horse such a versatile influence, and I think €14,000 for a proven stallion like this is very affordable.”

Michael Zerolo and Eric Puerari at Arqana | Zuzanna Lupa

Puerari doesn't rule out standing stallions at Capucines someday. “For just one horse, this was more practical, and Petit Tellier do a very good job,” he says. “But if we grow even more, then who knows? Of course we buy shares in stallions, and I've been managing stallions since I was young. It's a very interesting business; a very risky one, too. But I do think breeders today have to do a little bit of everything. Because sometimes you try stallions and they turn out no good, while the proven ones are becoming extremely expensive. If you look at the sales record of their progeny, there's very little margin. So you have to be creative. You try your luck with stallion shares, you do some consigning, some breaking, just find ways to balance your activity a little.”

Certainly it's a very different environment from the one into which he launched the farm as a young bloodstock agent in 1993. His father, a banker like many of their ancestors (the surname comes from Italy via Switzerland), had introduced Puerari to Thoroughbreds as a small but extremely shrewd breeder whose programme produced the likes of Silver Cloud and Tyrone. (Both won the Grand Criterium, and the latter followed up in the Poulains.) Puerari is also grateful for the racetrack mentoring of Maurice Zilber, whose approach he has memorably compared to the surprise attacks of a military genius.

“My father didn't have a farm, so I think the idea was little bit of a dream,” he recalls. “I realised that being an agent was something fragile, too; that you can lose traction, and I wanted to be on a more solid base. But I had no precise idea, no competence, no experience. No clue at all, really. Probably if I did it again, I would do it quite differently. But you know, I'm not sure I was doing much worse than now!”

Even the name was improvised. He hadn't given it any thought when suddenly the deadline for sale entries was upon him. With a day to decide, a neighbour happened to arrive, saying, “I've just come up the Boulevard des Capucines.” (Nasturtiums, that is, though Capucine also happened to be his sister's name.)

Puerari reckons that three things enabled him to overcome his lack of seasoning. One, he hired good people from the outset. Two, the land was the best in Normandy, as recognised by Louis XIV in choosing an adjacent site for the royal stud. And three, the farm's very first crop included G1 Irish Derby winner Winged Love (Ire).

Luck played its part here, too, as Sheikh Mohammed's team only diverted the horse to the Curragh from the German Derby at the 11th hour, following a setback to their intended runner. Fittingly, Winged Love was out of a mare co-bred by Puerari and his father from one they had bought from the Dupre family. Winged Love was then bought privately as a yearling by Anthony Stroud, with the condition that he was sent to a young trainer named Fabre.

“Winged Love was the turning point,” Puerari says. “That gave me some strength to carry on. To buy a farm and breed, you need funding, and on the eve of the King George—through Michel—I was able to sell the mare to the Yoshida family for a very round price. So that gave me the fuel to develop the farm.”

That, of course, was among many exports then being made by Japanese investors. As a result of those patient endeavours, the Japanese breed is arguably now setting global standards. But few seem to be heeding the implicit rebuke to short-term commercialism, among European breeders. It would be hard work, nowadays, to market a horse like Winged Love's sire, In The Wings (GB), who didn't crack the elite level until running over 12 furlongs at four.

At Tattersalls, where Puerari and Zerolo were as usual presiding over their European Sales Management draft, there was further evidence of fragility in the middle market.

“And the racing is a bit the same now, you have a few powerful organisations at the top and the system is very polarised,” Puerari says. “In that sale a big proportion of the nice, young, Group-winning mares were sprinters, because the Classic stables don't buy those as yearlings. That's where the market lies for ordinary people, they can buy those types for not too much money and hope to make them valuable. The return is quicker, if you can run early, and the programme especially in England is oriented that way. But you can see that the Classic stables are not that way, nor the Japanese—and the Japanese probably have the best horses in the world now.” Puerari smiles wryly, adding: “But the Irish are very creative!”

The business of the breeder is to have a dream, and then to face reality every day. It's about trying to keep that dream alive

Puerari accepts the observation that smaller breeders cannot really pretend that Classic sires are unaffordable, when you consider a horse like Nathaniel (Ire).

“But time is of the essence,” he says. “Everybody wants a quick return, everybody's in a hurry. You don't have many people playing for the long term. Look at the Aga Khan or the Wertheimers, they've been there for a century. How many comparable stables do we have in the world? Not many.”

Yet not all the great breeders have necessarily doubled down on their trademark families.

“For many years I worked for Monsieur Lagardere,” Puerari says. “And he would do the opposite. He'd try to renew at least 20 percent, maybe a quarter, of his bloodlines every single year. He would never 'sleep' on pedigrees, but would blend them, renew them, challenge them. And I do agree that bloodlines have a lifespan. Great female families and great breeding operations are the same: if you don't renew all the time, eventually you're going to lose power.”

Puerari is now curious to see how the overall gene pool addresses its own stagnation.

“We're getting ourselves into a corner, genetically,” he remarks. “The same horses are dominating, so we'll have to see whether we can find some interesting stallions with different blood. If you look at the old pedigrees, you see that in every era there's been dominant blood, with a lot of inbreeding. And then, surprisingly, these lines disappear. Lines that were fashionable quite recently, like the Mill Reef/Shirley Heights one, suddenly just die out.”

One way or another, then, a degree of rotation feels right in the Capucines programme.

“It's true that buyers get fed up with the 'normal,'” Puerari says. “Everybody wants something new all the time, that's why first-year stallions succeed. People always want new blood, a new offer, so we try to do that as well in our operation.”

From a domestic perspective, Puerari admits to disappointment that so many of the best French yearlings are nowadays exported.

“I think we have a lot of talent in France, but we lack a bit of funding,” he says. “It's now very difficult to have a horse for our main sale, here in August: you need a couple of hundred thousand for the mare, and to pay a nomination of €50,000, which means that after two or three years you've spent half a million with no guarantee.

“We do have some foreign investment, Sumbe and Yeguada Centurion are very nice additions, for instance. But we need more of those international breeders, and we need to stay internationally competitive. That's a big fight, here, because a lot of people just see the local scene. We need our leaders not to lose sight of the bigger picture, and to promote the best racing we can.”

At the top level, to be fair, that's an obligation shared internationally. Puerari feels that elite competition has been diluted by insertion of local showcases into the existing programme. The introduction of a Champions' Day at Ascot deliberately confronted both the Arc meeting and the Breeders' Cup, for instance, while enormous prizes offered in the desert have eroded historic races in California.

But then maybe that's another variation on the kind of constant change that Puerari has already discussed. And he's determined that the brand he has built, with the help of three Classic winners and two Breeders' Cup winners off the farm, will remain as relevant and responsive as ever in its 30th year.

He feels fortunate, in this respect, in his partnership with Zerolo. “We met on a plane years ago, going to Newmarket to visit the stable of Olivier Douieb,” Puerari recalls. “We were the same kind of age and just hit it off. Michel wasn't really thinking of having a farm but suggested, really just in a spirit of friendship, that we could do it together. And he has become one of the keys to me having the strength to carry on. I have a lot of admiration for people who do it all themselves, with no help. Both of us have our own relationships, so we remain very independent as well. But it's very important that Michel can offer a different angle. We're a mixture, we have different qualities and probably different defects too, but in the end it works. And that's not just a plus for us but also for clients of the farm.”

Most importantly, however, these are not just matters of structure and execution. Because, as we said at the outset, ultimately everything will stand or fall on that great “intangible,” the empathy between horse and horseman.

“Everybody needs some luck, some results, but there's never any guarantee,” says Puerari. “All we know is that the activity, as a breeder, is very rewarding in terms of human feelings. First because you work as a team, in a beautiful environment, and the team is very dedicated. And then when you see young horses, how they change every week, and you try to make them valuable. The difficult part is putting the mare in foal. Nobody understands why things suddenly go wrong, and the reality is that you have to accept some casualties. After the foal is born, you can control things a bit more. But the business of the breeder is to have a dream, and then to face reality every day. It's about trying to keep that dream alive.”

 

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Full Circle: First Yearlings for Arqana-Grad Sottsass Sell at Deauville

In the summer of 2017, Peter Brant was just at the beginning of his remarkable run with Sistercharlie (Ire) (My Boy Charlie {Ire}), who would go on to win seven Group 1 races for him, but he already knew how special she was.

“We were campaigning Sistercharlie at the time, and we knew how good she was because she had run second in the Prix Diane after getting into a lot of trouble. She almost got knocked down, and then looked like she would be absolutely nowhere. And then she came flying and made second. I knew then she just had to be a really good horse. We owned her going into the Prix Diane. And so we were very encouraged and then we brought her back to the United States and she ran in the Belmont Oaks. She lost by a nose. And she had just arrived and really never even had the chance to work or anything.”

Michel Zerolo had recommended Sistercharlie to Brant after her win in a conditions race at Saint-Cloud in April, and bought her for him after her win in the G3 Prix Penelope later than month. It was the first horse he had recommended to him.

Sistercharlie was the first foal out of Starlet's Sister, who has gone on to be a remarkable producer for Henri Bozo's Ecurie des Monceaux. Sistercharlie, the champion turf female in America, was followed by the multiple-group winner and $1 million-plus earner My Sister Nat (Fr) (Acclamation {GB}), and Sottsass (Fr), driving the prices for her subsequent foals into the stratosphere in the Arqana sales ring.

But that hadn't yet happened when Sottsass came up for sale that summer at Arqana, and Brant asked Zerolo to take a look. “Monceaux was selling him; they have the mare, Starlet's Sister, and so Michel Zerolo went to see him and he said he was really beautiful. He was a really big, strong, beautiful horse.”

Champion Sistercharlie wins the 2018 Breeders' Cup F/M Turf | Breeders' Cup/Eclipse Sportswire

Recalled Zerolo, “The obvious thing was that I was going to look at a brother of Sistercharlie, so it was a fairly easy pick. He was a very good-looking horse. He was very athletic. He was he was a good mover. The pedigree was a happening pedigree at the time. And Siyouni was a sire that I love.”

They purchased him for €340,000. Brant left him in France with trainer Jean-Claude Rouget.

Sottsass would go on to wins at two, and three, and four, including three Group 1s. He broke the track record in the Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby) at a mile and a quarter, won the Prix Ganay, and then Prix de l'Arc Triomphe at four in his final career start. He won at distances from eight furlongs to a mile and a half.

This week, 11 of his first yearlings are expected to pass through the ring at the Arqana August sale. Six of them will be offered by Zerolo and Eric Puerari's Haras des Capucines.

“I've seen a reasonable number of his first yearlings,” said Zerolo. “I wouldn't say they're all of a type. He does get some bays, he gets some chestnuts. I've seen a few that are on the smaller side, more on the Polar Falcon side. Otherwise, they all seem to have a good disposition, good mind, easy horses to be around, good-looking, scopey, correct. Very correct, the way he was.”

Brant named the horse after his friend, Ettore Sottsass, a well-know Austrian-Italian architect, furniture, glass, and home-products designer, whose bright red Olivetti Valentine Portable Typewriter has earned a spot in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “He was one of the great people in design in the 20th century,” said Brant. “And I knew him very well. I collected his furniture and his glass. I like to try to name my horses after 20th and 21st century culture.”

And though Sottsass the horse remained in Europe for his racing career, Brant was on hand for some of his best moments.

“I was there at the French Derby and it was a very, very impressive race,” he recalled. “Jean-Claude Rouget thought he was going to run very well. There were some great horses in there. Persian King was the favourite and there were a number of really well-bred French horses from the big barns and families in France as well as from England. And he just ran a powerhouse.”

The Arc took place during the first fall of the Covid pandemic in 2020, forcing Brant and his wife, Stefanie Seymour, to miss the race.

“My wife and I watched it in Connecticut and we got all dressed up as if we were there,” he said. “But it was a great thrill. I mean, if there were any neighbors close by, they could hear us yelling, that's for sure.”

Sottsass winning the Arc | Scoop Dyga

 

Brant-currently in the midst of an epic season with another son of Siyouni, Paddington (GB), who he owns in partnership–has heavily supported his stallion with some top mares, including sending him to his Eclipse Award-winning mare Uni in his third year at stud. His pedigree deserves those mares, he said.

“Very few mares have thrown horses like Sistercharlie, Sottsass, My Sister Nat. My Sister Nat (whom Brant purchased privately in October, 2018) lost the Breeders' Cup by a neck and she lost the Flower Bowl by a nose. She was also very, very good. But I think that Sistercharlie could be the best horse that I ever owned. They were all really good-looking. So I'm very anxious to see his babies run next year. We bred 12 mares to him because we really believe in him.”

His offspring will go to Jean-Claude Rouget, Aidan O'Brien and Chad Brown in the U.S., Brant said.

“I'm getting very good reports from the French, English and Irish breeders,” he said. “They look a lot like him. They're scopey, the majority of them are chestnut, as he is. They're very handsome horses with a good head. He stamped that in them. And they look like horses that are going to be Classic kind of horses, seven-furlongs to a mile-and-a-quarter, maybe a mile-and-a-half horses.”

Brant is in Saratoga this week keeping an eye on his U.S. runners, but has an affinity for European racing, and keeps about half his mares in Europe, primarily at Coolmore Ireland.

“I like the racing in Europe very much,” he said, sitting outside Chad Brown's Saratoga barn. “I feel like the facilities where you're training are superb. And I like the way they train those babies going straight and not doing too many turns at the beginning. I believe that horses need to run when they're two years' old and you have less risk of hurting them if there are no turns at the very, very beginning as their bones are getting set. And so I do like it.

“But I come from America and I grew up in Queens, near Aqueduct, and we used to sometimes skip school and go there. I really learned a lot about American horse racing and watched horses like Kelso and Carry Back, the great Dr. Fager, all the great, great horses running against each other. And I really love dirt racing as well. And of course, winning the Kentucky Derby (in partnership) with Claiborne in 1984 with Swale was one of the great thrills of my life. It's hard to top that,” he says, and then laughs a wry laugh. “But the Arc de Triomphe was pretty close.”

And while Sottsass won at two, Zerolo isn't sure that his yearlings are going to be “super-precocious,” he said. “They're going to cater to a type of buyer, people who want Classic horses. But I think they should sell very well. I think they'll make us as proud, and I think they should make Peter and Coolmore proud.”

Additional reporting by Katie Petrunyak

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Will The Full-Brother to Sottsass be the Star of the Show at Arqana?

It has become a familiar occasion to open the Arqana August catalogue and find an offering from the remarkably consistent broodmare Starlet's Sister (Ire), whose progeny have shone for years here for the perennial leading consignor, Ecurie des Monceaux.

Most recently, the Dubawi (Ire) filly Pure Dignity (GB) brought €2,500,000 from Oliver St. Lawrence in 2020, and Parliament (GB), a colt by Fastnet Rock (Aus), sold for €700,000 in 2019. Pure Dignity just won her first start for Roger Varian.

But the 2022 offering might be the most exciting yet: a full-brother to the multiple Group 1-winning Sottsass (Fr), the record-breaking World Champion, French Derby and Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner, now standing stud at Coolmore in Ireland. Sottsass himself sold here in 2017 to Michel Zerolo's Oceanic Bloodstock on behalf of Peter Brant for €340,000. And the people who know Sottass well, they will tell you his full-brother is almost a dead ringer.

Michel Zerolo bought both Sottsass and Sistercharlie | Sue Finley photo

“If you compare this yearling with Sottsass, you would find them quite similar,” said Henri Bozo, who will sell Lot 154 under his Ecurie des Monceaux banner on Sunday. Sottsass's regular pilot was by the farm to see the 2021 version, said Bozo. “Cristian Demuro, the jockey, was by to see him the other morning, and he was amazed by how much they looked alike. I think he's got the same head, the same forehand, and the same self-confidence. I think it's striking to people who know Sottsass well.”

One of those people, of course, is Michel Zerolo, both a buyer at Arqana and a seller under his Haras des Capucines banner, the farm and consignment he owns with partner Eric Puerari.

Zerolo bought Starlet's Sister's first-ever progeny, Sistercharlie (Ire), after her win in the G3 Prix Penelope in France, for Brant. Zerolo said she caught his eye when she won a Class 1 race at Saint-Cloud in her prior start, when he first recommended her. “She was mighty impressive that day,” he said. “She had a fantastic turn of foot.”

Zerolo would go on to be proven correct; Sistercharlie would go on to win 10 starts over four years, including the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf, to be named the Eclipse Award-winning turf female.

So when Sottsass, her half-brother by Siyouni (Fr) came up for sale in 2017, Zerolo and Brant were back. “He was an obvious one, of course,” said Zerolo.

In looking at Starlet's Sister's 2021 yearling, Zerolo said he sees the similarities as well.

“He's a nice horse,” he said. “He's probably a bigger version of Sottsass, very athletic. They're similar; they're full-brothers, of course. He has more white, and is a slightly lighter chestnut, but other than that, there are a lot of similarities.”

Bozo said that potential French buyers had been visiting the colt along with others in the consignment over the summer, but now, of course, an international marketplace has descended upon Arqana for the sale. “We've seen all the right French people and now we are looking forward to seeing all the foreigners coming here. But they will be present. They will be inside. The market is good and this sale has been extremely successful and good value.”

The Jour de Galop recently called Starlet's Sister the `unicorn of Monceaux,' and Bozo took a moment to reflect upon his good fortune in buying her. “We are very lucky and we do mean it. There was no talent in chasing her, a mare with a good pedigree, by Galileo (Ire) from a family we didn't have. We are always investing in young mares, I'm a big believer in young mares, especially when they are by the right sire lines. She was not expensive, and Hubert Guy keeps reminding me about the time he called me about her, and I must say, it has been a life-changing thing. She has been amazing.”

In the beginning, he said, he was looking to breed her to a proven stallion at an affordable price. “That's why we sent her to Myboycharlie,” he said. “He brought some strength and speed. And that was Sistercharlie. And the story keeps going. It's amazing.”

But for Bozo, who looks every bit the part of a man who could top this sale yet again, humility, gratitude and hard work seem the order of the day.

“We have to be grateful for these mares who have put Monceaux on the map and we keep trying to invest in new bloodlines to improve our work, improve our facilities,” he said. “And it's a non-ending adventure.”

And will Sunday be another chapter?

Zerolo said he felt it would. “He's got a wide appeal, it's a great cross, Siyouni over Galileo, and it has already worked. I would imagine he would appeal to a number of people. Best of luck to Henri.”

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Zerolo Adds Shades of Blue to Brant’s Portfolio at 850,000gns

Lot 1765, the 5-year-old Shades of Blue (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}) became the new Tattersalls December topper when hammering for 850,000gns to Michel Zerolo of Oceanic Bloodstock on behalf of Peter Brant's White Birch Farm. Part of The Castlebridge Consignment, the French listed winner, who placed twice at group level, is carrying to Frankel (GB) and will visit Brant's Arc hero Sottsass (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr}). Under the second dam is dual Group 2 winner and Group 1-placed stallion Gutaifan (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}). Shades of Blue's most recent prior sale was as a 320,000-gns purchase by BBA Ireland from the 2020 Tattersalls December Sale.

 

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