Coulonces Sales Makes Orby Debut

Two years ago, Anna Sundstrom's Coulonces Sales was known as a very good French consignor.

A lot can change in two years, and next week Sundstrom and the team at Coulonces head to the Goffs Orby sale, for the first time ever, with a reputation as a world-class organization thanks to the Group 1 exploits this term of its graduates Laurens (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr}) and Havana Grey (Ire) (Havana Gold {{Ire}).

“Years like this, everything is falling into place,” Sundstrom said last week on the phone from her car as she bustled between commitments at her farm in Normandy. As anyone in the sales world knows, the work is nonstop, but it's clear from the bubbling enthusiasm in Sundstrom's voice that she not only doesn't mind; she loves it.

“It's like someone is watching over us this year,” she said. “It's just really amazing what's happening, and you can't do this without the staff. Charlotte Hutchinson, who is my right-hand girl, she's been with me for eight years and this is a really joint thing that we're doing, and people know how important she is for the business. We've become very good together because we're two strong people in this team, and then we have the rest of the team, who are extremely good people.”

Sundstrom–a Swede who relocated to France with her parents, prominent breeders Jan and Maja Sundstrom, in 2004–admitted that, when her French consignment really began to gain traction five or six years ago, international selling wasn't something she was interested in; she preferred to focus on the market she knew. Soon, however, she was ready for new challenges.

“I've always said when the time is right, I would do it, but it had to be right,” she said. “I had to have the right horses.”

Sundstrom said the decision to sell outside France was also about meeting British and Irish trainers and getting her horses into different hands to diversify her families' opportunities.

“A lot of trainers and a lot of buyers weren't coming to France, and we had to go to them and say, 'hey, here we are, buy our horses.'”

It turns out that, with Coulonces's first Goffs UK Premier sale consignment two years ago, bidders didn't take quite that much convincing to latch on to Laurens; she became quickly known on the grounds as “The Queen”, and was subsequently the sale's highest-priced filly at £220,000. Laurens quickly lived up to her nickname on the track for owner John Dance, winning three of four juvenile starts including the G1 Fillies' Mile, and this year she has added the G1 Prix Saint-Alary, G1 Prix de Diane and G1 Matron S. The day after Laurens's Matron score, another Coulonces graduate, Havana Grey—who had gone through the ring just nine days before Laurens when knocked down to BBA Ireland for €70,000 at Arqana August and wound up in the same Karl Burke stable—earned a first top-flight win in the G1 Flying Five S. Other top-flight graduates of Coulonces or the Sundstrom family's breeding operation include the G1 Prix du Jockey Club winner and leading French sire Le Havre (Ire) and his dual Classic-winning daughter Avenir Certain (Fr), Group 3 winner and Group 1 runner-up Camprock (Fr) (Myboycharlie {Ire}) and Home of the Brave (Ire) (Starspangledbanner {Aus}), a multiple Group-winning sprinter now campaigning with success in Australia.

Meanwhile, Coulonces has continued to deliver results at sales both in France and in the UK, and next week, for the first time, Sundstrom will offer yearlings at Goffs Orby.

“Orby is the new venture for us this year,” she said. “Even though I'm nervous, which I always am going to the sales, I'm sure we've made a very good choice of three yearlings. I can't remember when we've ever had such nice yearlings. I'm so proud of them, they're amazing, and I hope the rest of the world thinks so, too.”

While selling at Orby will be a first, Sundstrom is plenty familiar with Goffs. Her family has taken their winter 'vacation' at the firm's November Sale for many years, and last year she began buying foals at that sale through High Valley Equine, an Irish-based company she has set up for some of her ventures outside of Coulonces Sales, including purchasing foals and racehorses.

“The idea for us to go to Goffs started last year when I went over to the Goffs November sale to buy a couple foals,” Sundstrom said. “I realized that I probably had to resell at Goffs UK or Goffs in Ireland, knowing that the market really needs a faultless horse.”

One of those purchases, a Starspangledbanner colt, sold for £140,000 at Goffs UK, having been a €78,000 foal, and Coulonces offers another colt by that sire on day one at Orby (lot 98). The colt out of Star Now (GB) (Librettist) is a half-brother to Swedish Group 3 winner Tinnitus (Ire) (Clodovil {Ire}), and Sundstrom said she knew she had to have him as soon as she laid eyes on him. She got him for €100,000.

“We came up to the yard where he was and when they opened the door and the horse came out, we were like, 'oh my god, we have to have him,'” Sundstrom said. “I hope the buyers at Orby will get the same feeling. He's pure class; he's a machine, as a lot of those Starspangledbanners are. He ticks all the boxes, but I still remember the first time I laid my eyes on him. It was like, 'no doubt, we have to have him.'”

The High Valley team has taken an even larger gamble on a full-brother to G3 Hackwood S. winner Heeraat (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}), who is also a half to listed winner Ambiance (Ire) (Camacho {GB}). They spent €340,000 on him last November and he goes through the ring at Orby as (lot 125).

“For me to have such an amazing pedigree, a full-brother to a very, very good horse, and then also the individual; we paid a lot of money for him,” Sundstrom said. “But then again, how often do you come across this type of yearling? He has it all. I think he'll suit Goffs and could be a standout on both type and pedigree. It's not often we have those types of pedigrees in our draft.”

“Then we said, 'ok, we have two wonderful colts, we need a filly that we can be proud of, something that means something from us.' So we have a homebred Le Havre filly. We bred Le Havre, with my parents, and we bought this mare and this is her first foal.”

Lot 249 is out of a half-sister to the stakes-winning Dalkova (GB) (Galileo {Ire}), a family which traces back to the dual Group 1 winner Daliapour (Ire) and, further down the page, the red hot family of Darshaan (GB) and his sister Darara (Ire), the dam of Dar Re Mi (GB) and her exciting progeny So Mi Dar (GB) , Lah Ti Dar (GB) and Too Darn Hot (GB), all by Dubawi (Ire). The homebred filly is owned by Sundstrom, her parents, Charlotte Hutchinson and Sundstrom's teenage daughter, Moa.

“The three horses make a really nice draft together,” Sundstrom said. “Nobody is outclassing the others because they're destined, I think, for different kinds of buyers. We're not aiming only at one certain type; they're all so different as individuals and on pedigree and I think that's important.”

Goffs Group Chief Executive Henry Beeby was full of praise for the Coulonces draft.

“They have three exceptional horses,” he said. “The Dark Angel is a beautiful colt. I auctioned him as a foal and I saw him at the farm in France in May and I think he's a very, very nice colt. The Starspangledbanner is as good a physical as I've seen all year; he's just an outstanding yearling, and the homebred Le Havre filly is a very nice filly.”

“[Sundstrom has] supported us well at our UK sale and now she's coming to the Orby sale as well. We're very grateful for her support and I think her horses will sell very well.”

Beeby also tipped his hat to the success of Sundstrom's business as a whole.

“She does an exceptional job,” he said. “Her attention to detail is as good as any. She is positivity personified. She's a wonderful person to work with, and her team and family. It's great to work with someone who is aiming so high. She sold Laurens with us and we're delighted that she's done so well.”

The strength of prizemoney and French-bred premiums have played a big hand in strengthening that country's breeding industry in recent years, and Daniel Creighton of Salcey Forest Stud had admitted two years ago that Laurens's eligibility for the premiums had encouraged him to have his final bid. Sundstrom acknowledged that selling a horse outside France with the premiums attached to it could help boost its value by a few bids at the middle to lower levels, but she said at the top level, especially with the current selective market, a seller has to bring a flawless physical and pedigree regardless of where the horse was born.

“When you're abroad, and especially today with the very, very selective market, your horse needs to be up to scratch with or without the premiums,” she said. “If you're at the lower level, [being eligible for premiums] could make a difference, but at the top level, I don't think it matters. Everyone is looking for 'the' horse, the specimen they think will be the highest class. We're getting into a very selective market that we're probably going to have now for a few years. It is an overproduction, and we don't know what Brexit will do. In France it's very, very important, because if you go to the sale and don't have the premiums they can always choose from 500 other yearlings that have it. But outside France, I think people are really, really looking for that good horse with or without premiums.”

Anna Sundstrom and Coulonces Sales have proven, time and time again, that they can provide what the market wants both domestically and internationally.