A slimmed down section of stores and National Hunt yearlings nevertheless brought an aggregate close to last year's tally as the Arqana Autumn Sale continued in Deauville.
Haras du Mesnil's immensely popular stallion Doctor Dino (Fr) provided the top two lots and the only six-figure sales of the session, for a yearling and two-year-old respectively.
At €120,000 the day's leader was the yearling filly named Cherry Berry (Fr), consigned by Mesnil's sister stud Haras de Maulepaire and bought by Ecurie de Launay. The May-born filly (Lot 572) is out of Snow Berry (Fr) (Dream Well {Ire}), a half-sister to the prolific chasing duo of Le Berry (Fr) (Gemix {FR}), whose 11 wins included the G1 Prix Maurice Gillois, and 13-time winner Berryville (Fr) (Poliglote {Fr}). This is also the further family of one of Maulepaire's most famous Flat graduates, the Melbourne Cup and Hong Kong Vase winner Dunaden (Fr).
Jerome Glandais conducted the bidding and said afterwards of the half-sister to this season's Auteuil Listed winner Funny Berry (Fr) (Bathyrhon {Fr}), “She was bought for Sofiane Benaroussi. We are looking for well-bred fillies by good stallions. The objective is to find the right profile for racing and also for breeding.”
Earlier, the two-year-old AQPS gelding Lascar du Mathan (Fr) (Lot 514) had sold to Guy Petit for €100,000.
“For me, he is the horse of the sale, he really has everything going for him,” said the agent. “He's a beautiful horse and a son of Doctor Dino. I bought him for my client David Maxwell and he will be trained in France.”
Of the 114 horses on offer on Tuesday, 84 were sold to lift the clearance rate slightly to 74%. The average of €26,025 was a 15% improvement on last year's figures, and the median rose from €15,000 to €20,000. Turnover was down by 5% at €2,191,000 but from 16 fewer horses sold this time around.
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