Japanese industry's willingness to broaden horizons reflected in stunning JRHA Select Sale offering

It may only be July but one of the year's most significant global events in the bloodstock industry will take place this coming week in Japan's celebrated Northern Horse Park, the stage for the JRHA Select Sale on Monday and Tuesday.

The catalogue for the sale, which sees yearlings come under the hammer during the first session and concludes with a foal session, is a treasure trove of glittering jewels, studded with sparkling pedigrees and names with which to conjure.

While Japanese racing has crossed new frontiers in recent years with triumphs in the world's most prestigious races, Japanese breeding over the last four decades has benefited from the importation of bloodlines from other racing and breeding territories long before Japanese trainers began their current victorious runs. 

That willingness to broaden horizons remains one of the hallmarks of Japanese breeding and, studying the catalogue for both the foal and yearling sessions, the truly global nature of the thoroughbred industry - and the unrelenting Japanese quest to improve and diversify their herd - is striking.

Going global

A total of 222 yearlings remain in the sale and their female lines are not just the best of Japanese breeding, they represent the best of breeding and racing around the world. Of the youngsters in the sale, 40 are out of Group/Grade 1 winners, which is 18 per cent of the total. 

The decision of Zenya Yoshida to buy out the other part-owners of Sunday Silence when Arthur Hancock drew stumps early with the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Breeders' Cup Classic winner rewrote the history books of Japanese breeding, and through his son Deep Impact, the practically black horse continues to make a major impression on global racing. 

The Yoshida family's continued willingness to seek out horses around the world to refresh Japanese bloodlines is a trend that has been followed by other major Japanese owners and breeders, and that influence is very obvious when reading the Select Sale catalogue.

Fifty-six of the youngsters are the produce of mares foaled in North America, which is a quarter of the entire catalogue, with six more out of mares from South America, and interestingly they are all Grade 1 winners on their native soil. Two of the Group 1 winners with their first foals in the yearling section are from Australasia; Queensland Oaks winner Youngstar's Kizuna colt is the first lot through the ring on Monday, while Seabrook, the ATC Champagne Stakes winner, is the dam of a colt by Real Steel (lot 22).

A further 40 yearlings are the offspring of mares foaled in Europe, which gives 18 per cent of the total, and 47 per cent of the dams in the yearling sale were foaled outside of Japan.

The sire profile of the yearlings also reflects the international nature of the industry, with Europe and the United States both represented. 

That's my boy! Ger Lyons with his stable star Siskin after his impressive success in the Tattersalls Irish 2,000 GuineasCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

Cosmopolitan Queen, a Dubawi full-sister to Arabian Queen, who stunned Golden Horn in the 2015 Juddmonte International, was snapped up in foal to Kingman by Katsumi Yoshida for 320,000gns at the Tattersalls December Mare Sale from breeder Jeff Smith's Littleton Stud. The colt she was carrying at the time is offered as lot 16 on Monday and is the only yearling by Kingman, the sire of Grade 1 NHK Cup Mile winner Schnell Meister, in the sale.

Shadai Farm consigns the solitary yearling by Wootton Bassett (102) to come under the hammer and the colt is a full-brother to Audarya, victorious in the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf and Prix Jean Romanet for James Fanshawe and the Swinburns. 

In Saxon Warrior, Coolmore have a sire who blends the Sunday Silence and Sadler's Wells genes perfectly, and the son of Deep Impact and grandson of Galileo is a fitting European sire to find among the stallion list in the catalogue. Northern Farm itself consigns the only yearling by the 2,000 Guineas and Racing Post Trophy winner, who sired the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf winner Victoria Road in his first crop. The chestnut colt (132) is the first foal of Elvas, one of those half-dozen South American Grade 1 winners with offspring in the yearling section.

Darley's European champion two-year-old Pinatubo is an eyecatching name in the index and his first-crop yearling son (56) consigned by Yasuhiro Suzuki is inbred on his dam's side to Urban Sea. He is out of Musaanada, twice a winner for Shadwell in Britain, and the daughter of Sea The Stars was acquired carrying this colt for 90,000gns by the JS Company at the same sale as Cosmopolitan Queen. Musaanada is out of Gaze, a Galileo half-sister to Fame And Glory.

Juddmonte's American-bred and Irish-trained Siskin, who provided Ger Lyons and Colin Keane with a memorable first Classic winner when successful in the Irish 2,000 Guineas in 2020, stands at the Shadai Stallion Station and the son of First Defence has his first crop of yearlings this year. Two daughters of the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes and Group 2 Railway Stakes winner represent him in the JRHA Select Sale.

From Lake Villa Farm comes a half-sister (167) to Grade 2 Flora Stakes winner Cool Cat and Triomphe, successful in the Grade 3 Nakayama Kimpai, and they are out of Mejiro Tonkinese, a stakes-placed granddaughter of Sunday Silence. 

Northern Farm consigns a well-related daughter (213) of Siskin. She is the first foal of Chant De L'Ange, a Manhattan Cafe half-sister to the Grade 3 winner Martinborough, who stood at Haras de Grandcamp. More significantly, Chant De L'Ange is a half-sister to Halwa Sweet, the Machiavellian mare who is the dam of three individual Grade 1 winners; Japan Cup hero Cheval Grand, by Heart's Cry, and the Deep Impact full-sisters Verxina and Vivlos, who was successful in the Dubai Turf.

First foals

In a neat symmetrical twist there are currently 222 foals in the catalogue for Tuesday's second session and, in much the same vein as the yearling sale, this year's crop are representative of that global outlook which has served Japanese breeders so well.

Poetic Flare wins the 2,000 Guineas at NewmarketCredit: Alan Crowhurst (Getty Images)

There are fewer offspring out of Group/Grade 1 winners, with 25 of the remaining foals in this category, which is a little more than 11 per cent, but the number of foals whose dams are proven Group/Grade 1 producers is higher, with ten of them falling into this section.

Again, the bloodlines to be found in the pages are international, with North American-bred mares accounting for 53 of the foals, or approximately 24 per cent of the total. South America provides another six per cent and Australia a little less with five per cent of the total, while 35 of the mares, or 16 per cent,  were born in Europe, which means the catalogue is split approximately 50-50 between the foals of Japanese-born mares and those from overseas.

To go along with his yearling on Monday, Saxon Warrior also has a foal in the sale and the Murakami Kinya Farm colt (517) is a beautifully bred son of the Classic winner. His second dam, Sandy Girl, is a Footstepsinthesand half-sister to Stacelita, whose four Group 1 victories included the Prix de Diane. As a broodmare in Japan, she provided Frankel with his first Classic winner - Soul Stirring - and the daughter of Monsun is the second dam of the Yushun Himba and Oka Sho heroine Stars On Earth.

His Coolmore studmate No Nay Never is the sire of lot 317, who comes from the outstanding Barronstown Stud family of Doff The Derby. Consigned by Okada Stud, she is out of Just Imagining, who is a War Front half-sister to Group 1 Criterium International winner Van Gogh by American Pharoah, Horatio Nelson, who was successful in the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere, and to the Group/Graded winners Kitty Matcham, Viscount Nelson and Point Piper, and the Group 1-placed Red Rocks. 

Their dam is the Irish 1,000 Guineas winner Imagine, a Sadler's Wells full-sister to Irish 1,000 Guineas runner-up Strawberry Roan and a half-sister to Derby, King George and Irish Derby winner Generous out of Doff The Derby.

Poetic Flare is another recent European Classic winner who found a place at stud in Japan and a quartet of foals from his first crop come under the hammer on Tuesday. 

Jim Bolger's homebred son of Dawn Approach stands alongside Siskin at the Shadai Stallion Station and the first foal to come under the hammer by the St James's Palace Stakes winner boasts an impeccable pedigree. Northern Farm offers a son of Tosen Soleil (303), a Neo Universe half-sister to the inimitable Deep Impact. Also from Northern Farm is a Poetic Flare half-brother (365) to last season's Grade 3 Hakodate Nisai winner Bouton D'Or. 

Okada Stud consigns the only filly by Poetic Flare in the catalogue (522), out of a half-sister to Listed third Desert Snake from the family of champion Go For Wand.

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