Voute Looking For More Joy

Last fall, consignor Ted Voute and breeder Ken Ramsey kicked off an experiment to raise the profile of Ramsey's homebred stallion, U.S. champion sire Kitten's Joy, in the European marketplace. Through Voute, Ramsey offered two of his homebred yearlings by Kitten's Joy, one each at Tattersalls Book 1 and Goffs Orby, and the results could certainly be deemed a success: the Orby offering, a full-brother to the stakes-placed Sneaky Kitten, fetched €300,000 from Fiona Shaw, while the following week a full-brother to the stakes-placed Spooky Kitten made 390,000gns at Tattersalls from Nawara Stud.

Voute and Ramsey will this year offer 10 yearlings by Kitten's Joy between Goffs, Tattersalls and Arqana, with a colt, the first foal out of the stakes-placed Wave Of Applause (GB) (Royal Applause), looking to kick proceedings off with a bang as lot 1 at Arqana August.

“We take a particular type [to Arqana],” Voute explained. “They have to be quite mature. The Ramseys are very keen to support the three major [sales] companies in Europe: Goffs, Arqana and Tattersalls.

For the second year, Voute traveled to Ramsey Farm in Kentucky to inspect all of Ramsey's yearlings to find the most suitable candidates for Europe.

“We went through the entire crop they had and tried to allocate some with a bit of European appeal in the pedigree, and then the types to suit the sales,” he said.

“Then we grade them, and [farm manager] Mark [Partridge] and I go back to the office and go through a due diligence process based on pedigrees, scopes, x-rays, and all the rest of it.”

“Mr. Ramsey is a man on a mission,” Voute added. “He wants to get Kitten's Joy internationally recognized, which obviously he's well on the way to doing.”

Lot 1 is out of a listed-placed mare who began her career in Ireland and was also fourth in the GII Providencia S. and GIII Senorita S. His third dam is the French stakes winner Wavey (GB) (Kris {GB}).

“I'm pretty excited about him–strategically we wanted to put some nice ones at Arqana because we wanted to set off in the right way,” Voute said. “We just felt he was one that would kick it off the right way. The mother was trained by Tommy Stack in Ireland so we have that link, and she was good enough to run at Royal Ascot in the [G3] Albany then went to California with Jim Cassidy.”

Voute had catalogued another Kitten's Joy, a colt out of Imagistic (Deputy Minister) to Arqana, but decided to withdraw that lot and divert him to Book 1 at Tattersalls to give him more time to mature.

“He came over and I just felt he wouldn't be ready in time, and would benefit from an extra month,” Voute said of the full-brother to the stakes-winning Gentleman's Kitten. “Rather than bring one a month short of preparation in his physique we decided he'd be better suited to a later sale. Nothing has happened to him, I just felt I couldn't get him ready in time, and I think he'll look pretty good when it comes to Tattersalls.”

Despite the loss of that colt, Voute will still be double-handed at Arqana, also offering an American-bred Mizzen Mast filly on behalf of Bill and Carole McAlpine's Greenwood Lodge Farm (lot 123). The March-foaled grey is the first foal out of Pearl In The Sand (Ire) (Footstepsinthesand {GB}), who ran second in The Curragh's Listed Blenheim S. Pearl In The Sand is a half-sister to the G2 Norfolk S. second Reckless Reward (Ire) (Choisir {Aus}), and her third dam produced the G3 Prix de Meautry scorer Andreyev (Ire) (Presidium {GB}).

“I really like the filly,” Voute said. “Ger Lyons trained the mare and this is her first foal. That pedigree has a lot more French within it, so that was a big reason why we wanted to go to Arqana.”

The top half of her pedigree should also be a draw, as two of Mizzen Mast's seven Grade/Group 1 winners, Flotilla (Fr) and Full Mast, scored at the highest level in France.

Voute noted he is also likely to shop at the sale at which he sourced last year's G1 Dewhurst S. victor Belardo (Ire) (Lope De Vega) and G2 Prix Greffulhe winner Ocovango (GB) (Monsun {Ger}).

“It's been a very lucky place for me,” he noted. “It's a nice sale because you can buy and sell at it; all the yards are close enough that you can actually see what you're doing throughout the day as you're looking at the odd few.”

As for his American-bred duo, Voute suggested they should fit in no problem across the pond.

“I don't know why the American-sired horses just have that small edge in Arqana each year, but they've managed to attract one or two Americans and they just seem to sell a tiny bit better than they do at some of the other places, so we hope that continues,” he said.