Dabirsim

The curtain came down on this year's Arqana Breeding Stock Sale on Tuesday where the demand for fillies-in-training, broodmares and foals in particular brought strong trade to Deauville over the course of the four-day sale. Prix de Diane heroine Sparkling Plenty (Fr) (Kingman {GB}) led the way overall, having been sold on Saturday for €5 million to Michel Zerolo of Oceanic Bloodstock alongside Coolmore's MV Magnier on behalf of "a new partnership". All told, five fillies or mares cleared seven figures at a sale where all of the key metrics...

Is it just me or should France be known as the bloodstock land of opportunity? This is the country that saw Wootton Bassett (GB) and Walk In The Park (Ire) pull themselves up by the bootstraps after entering the stud book at relatively modest sums. There are few serious racing nations that provide as much of a chance for a stallion to flourish than France does. Take Kauto Star (Fr), the greatest staying chaser of the modern era, as an example. He hailed from the largely unheralded Village Star (Fr)...

France was the forerunner of the stallion trail, its La Route des Etalons having been launched in 2010, catching the rising tide of increasingly sought-after stallions in the country following a spell in the doldrums.  This popular weekend feature of late January was, like almost everything else, interrupted for a few years by Covid restrictions, but there is none of that to worry about now as the two days of touring around some of Normandy's most exquisite stud farms gets underway this Saturday morning.  The bright young things of TDN...

Japanese champion miler Hat Trick (Jpn) (Sunday Silence-Tricky Code, by Lost Code) has died aged 19 in Brazil. The news was first reported by Turf Diario. The winner of the G1 Mile Championship in Japan and the G1 Hong Kong Mile, Hat Trick was based for most of his stud career in the U.S., starting out at Walmac International before relocating to Gainesway, where he stood for five years before being sold to South America, to where he had already been shuttling, in 2017. Hat Trick is best known for...