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 with, and there are 14 freshman sires with members of their first crop on offer in Deauville this week. Sottsass (Fr) is detailed in the accompanying feature, and on the same day that he recorded his most prestigious win in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, at the other end of the distance spectrum Wooded (Ire) was winning the Prix de l'Abbaye for Al Shaqab Racing. With his sire Wootton Bassett (GB) now having moved from France to Coolmore's Irish base, the sprinter was doubtless a welcome addition to Normandy's stallion ranks. Two of his yearlings are in the August catalogue and another nine feature in the V.2 sale next Tuesday, and Wooded was given an extra boost over the weekend when his full-brother Bucanero Fuerte (GB) won the G1 Keeneland Phoenix S.
The poster celebrating his latest major success after also winning the G2 Railway S. is already on display at the consignment of Haras d'Etreham, which sold Bucanero Fuerte last August for €165,000 and will offer his Dubawi (Ire) half-sister on Saturday as lot 214.
“We were so sure that he would win that we had it made in advance,” said Nicolas de Chambure with a smile, and he has plenty to be happy about at present.
In what may help other sons of Siyouni (Fr) coming through, Etreham's City Light (Fr) has made a decent start with his runners this season, with his eight runners to date representing a strike-rate of 40% to put him in front in the French first-season sires' table. Coming through hard on his heels are his fellow residents, Persian King (Ire) and Hello Youmzain (Fr), who have 19 and 21 first-crop yearlings respectively in the August catalogue. These include lot 50, Etreham's speedy-looking Hello Youmzain half-sister to the G3 Prix Djebel winner Fast Raaj (Fr) (Iffraaj {GB}).
Another Group 1-winning sprinter to have joined the French ranks at the same time is Sumbe's Commonwealth Cup winner Golden Horde (Ire), himself by the July Cup winner Lethal Force (Ire) and out of a mare by another top sprinter, Pivotal (GB).
Of two yearlings catalogued, Golden Horde has one remaining, lot 29, a colt from the family of Bloomsbury Stud's Queen Mary winner Pushy (GB).
Along with the aforementioned Wooded, another Haras de Bouquetot stallion with first yearlings is the Irish 2,000 Guineas and Prix Jacques Le Marois winner Romanised (Ire), whose sole offering in August (lot 158) is from the family of Treve (Fr) and is a half-sister to the German Group 2 winner Boscaccio (Ger) (Mount Nelson {GB}).
Ghaiyyath (Ire), Horse of the Year in 2020, heads a trio of Darley stallions in the freshman division, along with two Group 1-winning sons of Shamardal in Earthlight (Ire) and Pinatubo (Ire). Among Earthlight's three is the penultimate yearling in the ring, lot 313, a half-brother to the G1 Prix Jean Prat winner Intellogent (Fr) (Intello {Ger}), while La Motteraye offers a Ghaiyyath half-sister to G3 Prix La Force winner Chilean (GB) (Iffraaj {GB}) as lot 176.
Early in Sunday's session, Monceaux will offer one of a quartet of yearlings by the 2,000 Guineas winner Kameko in the sale. Lot 227 is out of a Galileo (Ire) half-sister to the GI Arkansas Derby winner Bodemeister.
Among those with a single representative here in Deauville, but about whom we will doubtless be hearing plenty more as the season progresses, are Yeomanstown Stud's Shaman (Ire), Newsells Park Stud resident Without Parole (GB), Shadwell's Mohaather (GB), and Maximum Security, who is based at Coolmore's Ashford Stud in America. The latter's filly, in the Haras de l'Hotellerie draft as lot 246, was bred by Leopoldo Fernandez Pujals, whose Yeguada Cebturion operation is having a banner year as the breeders of Blue Rose Cen (Ire), Big Rock (Fr) and Ramatuelle, who runs in Sunday's G1 Sumbe Prix Morny.
The updates keep coming thick and fast for Arqana. On Wednesday at Salisbury, last year's August graduate Arabian Crown (Fr) (Dubawi {Ire}) won the Listed Stonehenge S., his second victory in three starts for Godolphin. Bought for €600,000, he was bred by Guy Heald from Dubai Rose (GB) (Dubai Destination), and his three-parts-brother by Night Of Thunder (Ire) features in the Monceaux draft as lot 196. Heald keeps mares at both Monceaux and La Motteraye and, through the latter, he is selling a colt from the same family who is a three-parts-brother to the Group 1 winner Sea La Rosa (Fr) and Group 2 winner Deauville Legend (Fr). That pair has Sea The Stars (Ire) as sire, and it is his son Sea The Moon (Ger) who is responsible for the yearling colt (lot 77) out of Soho Rose (GB) (Hernando {Fr}), a half-sister to Dubai Rose.
The Haras d'Etreham team wasn't the only one celebrating a Group 1 winner at the weekend. Haras de la Perelle's Simca Mille (Ire) (Tamayuz {GB}) took the Grosser Preis von Berlin on Sunday in the homeland of his owner/breeder Jurgen Winter. Perelle has topped the August Sale before, back in 2017 with a €1.55 million colt by Dubawi out of the G1 Falmouth S. winner Giofra (GB) (Dansili {GB}). The stud offers two members of that same family this week, including a Hello Youmzain half-brother to Giofra (lot 232), and is saving the Sea The Moon (Ger) half-brother to Simca Mille for the October Sale.
As this year's star three-year-old Paddington (GB) has shown, there's certainly no harm in being a graduate of that later auction. For now, though, all eyes are on the August Sale, as Arqana is once again the bellwether for Europe's elite yearling sales.
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