Arqana October Yearling Sale

With October well-known as the month for Breast Cancer awareness, this year Arqana will partner with the François Baclesse Center, inviting all vendors/consigners to participate in a charitable challenge throughout the October Yearling Sale. Arqana will organize its own version of the 'Pink Walk' beginning Monday, Oct. 16 and continue through Friday, Oct. 20. A limited edition of the Arqana cap will also be available for purchase (boutique, customer service and restaurant) at the price of 15€. All proceeds will be donated to the François Baclesse Center. For more information,...

A full-brother to Arc hero Sottsass (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr}) (lot 59) is one of the highlights of the upcoming Arqana October Yearling Sale from Oct. 17-21. Divided into three parts with a total of 731 yearlings on offer, the sale will feature 228 yearlings beginning at 11 a.m. in Part 1 on Tuesday, Oct. 17. Wednesday's session kicks off Part 2 with 119 lots, and Thursday's session sees another 190 lots set to sell, with both days beginning at 2 p.m. Part 3 begins at 2 p.m. on Friday, Oct....

The majority of Arqana's yearlings have now gone through the ring this season, with only the November Yearling Sale's 155 lots left to sell, and indices are positive across a range of categories for the Deauville-based sales company when taken as a whole. For the first time, more than 1,200 horses were offered, with more than 1,000 of them finding new homes for a clearances rate of 82.7%. The turnover (€80,499,000) and average (€75,871) both increased, while the median settled at €31,000. In addition, 227 (+17%) horses sold for €100,000...

The October Yearling Sale at Arqana came to a close on Friday with respectable Part Three trade highlighted by a €42,000 filly by De Treville (GB) (lot 757) who sold from Ombreville to Antoine de Watrigant. From the family of G3 Prix Noailles winner and G1 Grand Prix de Paris second Slalom (Fr) (Intello {Ger}) and his stakes-winning and group-placed full-brother Folamour (GB) (Intello {Ger}), the February foal also traces to G3 Prix Perth heroine and quadruple black-type producer Danzigaway (Danehill). The filly's Showcasing (GB) half-brother Empathic (Fr) had won...

DEAUVILLE, France--He could certainly be considered one who got away. The prowess of Adlerflug (Ger) was only really fully appreciated in the last few years of his life, which was sadly all too short. The son of In The Wings (GB) was of course responsible for last year's Arc winner Torquator Tasso (Ger) but that major triumph came six months after his death at Gestut Schlenderhan at the age of just 17. With two yearlings catalogued this week at Arqana, the only one of those in Part II of the...

DEAUVILLE, France--It's beginning to feel as if it's John O'Connor's world and we're just living in it. After selling 27 yearlings for almost 6.5 million gns at Tattersalls last week, Ballylinch Stud, which he manages, was then represented by a Group 1 double at Ascot's Champions Day when first Bayside Boy (Ire) won the Queen Elizabeth II S., followed by the triumph of Bay Bridge (GB) in the Champion S. Both are sons of Ballylinch resident New Bay (GB), and Bayside Boy was bred and is co-owned by Ballylinch, while...

DEAUVILLE, France--Everything changes, especially the format of bloodstock sales, and Arqana's five-day Octoberfest is no exception. This year Part I has been extended to two days from one, and after the first session in Deauville on Monday, it is probably also fair to say that the more things change the more they stay the same. Sea The Stars (Ire) was the sire of the top lot. Ecurie des Monceaux, that juggernaut of a French sales consignment, was the session's leading vendor, and Stroud Coleman Bloodstock the leading buyer, but Haras...

DEAUVILLE, France--The broodmare shopping spree of Leopoldo Fernandez Pujals several years ago has already resulted in his first homebred Group 1 winner, Blue Rose Cen (Ire) (Churchill {Ire}), a daughter of the Jeremy mare Queen Blossom (Ire) who heads next to the Breeders' Cup at Keeneland.  It was next door to that track that Fernandez Pujals, who operates as Yeguada Centurion, bought Needmore Flattery (Flatter) from Lane's End Farm in 2019. That same year she had foaled a Gun Runner colt, who was later named Taiba and went on to...

The catalogue for the five-day Arqana October Yearling Sale, featuring 781 lots, is now online. Past graduates of the sale, held from Oct. 17-21 this year, brought home a quartet of group/graded victories this last weekend, with Jadoomi (Fr) (Holy Roman Emperor {Ire}) and Iresine (Fr) (Manduro {Ger}) winning at the Group 2 level in Ireland and France, respectively. Stateside, Bran (Fr) (Muhaarar {GB}) claimed the GII Turf Sprint S. and Avenue De France (Fr) (Cityscape {GB}) landed the GII John C. Mabee S. Beginning at 11 a.m. on Monday,...

DEAUVILLE, France--Zarak (Fr), the Aga Khan Studs' beautifully bred son of Dubawi (Ire) and Arc heroine Zarkava (Fr), has made a promising start with his first 2-year-old runners this season and currently has 11 winners to his name from 26 runners. At the weekend he was represented by his first stakes winner when the Gestut Haus Zoppenbroich homebred Lizaid (Ger) the G3 Preis der Winterkonigin for Peter Schiergen at Baden-Baden, while another recent winner, Zagrey (Fr), gave an important update to the filly who topped trade as Part III of...

DEAUVILLE, Newmarket--By the end of the second session of the Arqana October Sale, turnover had already passed the 2020 total for all five days, and trade continued to bowl along in a similarly upbeat fashion on Wednesday with another €4,744,000 added to the overall tally which has just passed the €25-million mark. To put that in context, the current aggregate has been achieved from the sale of 424 yearlings so far this week. Last year, €18,617,000 was paid for 578 horses, and from a significantly smaller sale in 2019, €17,456,500...

DEAUVILLE, France--In weather that wouldn't have felt out of place for Arqana's August Sale, the sales ground in Deauville was bathed in warm sunshine on Tuesday while trade in the ring continued to be similarly encouraging. There was a time when Elusive City, at €15,000, was the most expensive stallion at stud in France. Much has changed in the intervening decade and the former Haras d'Etreham stallion was lost to the local breeding industry when suffering a heart attack in 2019 after standing ten seasons in France. But he was...