Deauville

The Arqana Series, a five-race series worth €1.2 million and reserved for colts and fillies offered by the sales company, was launched on Wednesday. The races will be held during the August Meeting at Deauville and the Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe weekend at ParisLongchamp, beginning in 2023. Criteria for the races are as follows: Three 2-year-old races will take place during an evening meeting on the Thursday before the August Yearling Sale at Deauville-La Touques Racecourse including two for unraced juveniles; A 2-year-old race on the Saturday of the Prix de...

Careful readers of the Arqana website--or those caught booking a house too early in Deauville for the summer sales--will have noticed some significant changes in the French sales calendar this year. For the past several years, the two-day select, or Part I, yearlings in the August sale sold in the evening, then were followed by an all-day open session, and then the V2, a sale targeted to more regional buyers. In all, three different classes of yearlings were sold over four days. For 2022, the Arqana team has taken the...

The Arqana Summer Sale in Deauville, featuring 488 lots, will be held from June 30-July 1. Catalogued are 93 2-year-olds in pre-training, 143 2- and 3-year-old stores, 145 horses-in-training and 107 fillies and mares. Flat-bred 2-year-olds will canter at Deauville Racecourse at 1 p.m. local time on June 29. The next day, those Flat-bred 2-year-olds and stores will begin selling at 11 a.m. The breeding stock and horses-in-training session will begin at 11 a.m. on July 1. Previous sale alumni include the globetrotting Group 1 winner Lord Glitters (Fr) (Whipper),...

By Emma Berry and Brian Sheerin DEAUVILLE, France--It wasn't until the wild-card selection after the end of the main catalogue that the day's top lot walked the ring at the Arqana Breeze-Up Sale, and that honour went to Willie Browne's Mocklershill team and their colt by the late Zoffany (Ire), who sold for €550,000. Oliver St Lawrence had kept his powder dry for much of the day, but having warmed up with a €520,000 bid for a Siyouni (Fr) colt from Longways Stables, he went strong again for the session...

DEAUVILLE, France--Deliverance came a day early for Katie McGivern at the Arqana Breeze-Up Sale as lot 64, a Sioux Nation filly and lot 66, a filly by Siyouni (Fr), finished in the top five fastest times overall in the session. It was McGivern's fillies, the only two that she brought to one of the premier breeze-up sales in Europe, who emerged from the cavalry of 130 juveniles as being up there with the fastest on show. McGivern stuck her neck out in going to €68,000 for the Siyouni filly out...

DEAUVILLE, France--With a glinting sun, seagulls on the wing, and the occasional hint of a sea breeze, it is hard to imagine on this perfect spring day that there was ever anything wrong in the world. But it was three years ago that Arqana last held its Breeze-Up Sale at its rightful home in Normandy, with a prolonged pandemic twice forcing the uprooting of one of the most popular auctions of the year to Yorkshire. "It is good to be back here," says Freddy Powell, Arqana's executive director. "But we...

Leading breeze-up consignor Johnny Hassett has labelled the collection of horses on offer at the Arqana Breeze-Up Sale as the best bunch he has ever seen in one place at a given time and put forward colts by Siyouni (Fr) (lot 149) and Expert Eye (GB) (lot 43) from his eight-strong Bloodstock Connection draft as the most likely to make the biggest impression on buyers. Malavath (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}), runner-up to Pizza Bianca (Fastnet Rock {Aus}) in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf and Rockemperor (Ire) (Holy Roman Emperor...

The catalogue for the Arqana Breeze-Up Sale grew by seven more lots with the addition of wildcards on Friday. Slated for May 13, with the breezes to be held the day prior, the new recruits include: lot 146, a filly by Oasis Dream (GB) from the family of the Group 1-placed Titian Time (Red Ransom) from Yeomanstown Stud; Bloodstock Connection will send a colt by Siyouni (Fr) through the ring as lot 149, who is a half-brother to a pair of black-type horses; Glending Stables' lot 150, a Night of...

First it was Agave, then Dreamflight and now Zellie (Fr) (Wootton Bassett {GB}) as the Andre Fabre-Olivier Peslier link-up continues apace in the new season. Al Wasmiyah Farm's G1 Prix Marcel Boussac heroine returns in the seven-furlong G3 Prix Imprudence at Deauville, a key trial for the upcoming mile Classics last won by a subsequent 1000 Guineas heroine in Natagora (Fr) (Divine Light {Jpn}) in 2008 and in 2015 by the eventual G1 Poule d'Essai des Pouliches scorer Ervedya (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr}). Peslier is on record as saying that he...

A total of 145 2-year-olds in training comprise the catalogue for the Arqana May Breeze-Up Sale to be held Friday, May 13 beginning at 2pm at the company's Deauville sales complex. The horses will be put through their paces under-tack at the Deauville-La Touques Racecourse on Thursday, May 12 at midday. No fewer than 80 different stallions, from either side of the Atlantic, are represented by juveniles. Major European-based sires include Dark Angel (Ire), Invincible Spirit (Ire), Kingman (GB), the late Le Havre (Ire), Lope de Vega (Ire), Sea The...

Following positive starts to the sales year in Britain and Ireland, this week the midwinter auction action switches to France for the two-day Arqana February Sale, which starts on Tuesday in Deauville. Trade begins with a session of 85 horses in training, both Flat and Jumps, and then progresses to yearlings and 2-year-olds, followed by breeding stock.  A rare opportunity in this part of the world to buy a daughter of Deep Impact (Jpn)'s promising young son Kizuna (Jpn) is presented by lot 164, from the draft of Wertheimer et...

The winner Diva Victoria (Fr) (Recorder {GB}) (lot 70) has been added as a wildcard to the upcoming Arqana February Mixed Sale. Offered by trainer Jean-Claude Rouget, the great granddaughter of the G1 Oaks heroine Eswarah (GB) (Unfuwain) will go through the ring on Tuesday, Feb. 15 along with the other 95 horses-in-training. Her dam is a half-sister to G2 Prix de Pomone and G3 Prix de Psyche victress Raabihah (Sea The Stars {Ire}), who also ran second in the G1 Prix Vermeille. Diva Victoria, who is currently rated 85,...