'That price was over my expectations' - €1.6m Shamardal colt leads way at Arqana

Big bids flowed freely during the opening session of the Arqana August Sale on a sweltering Saturday afternoon in Deauville, most notably when Godolphin and Japanese trainer Yoshito Yahagi went head to head over the Shamardal colt out of the Group 3 winner Lady Frankel.

The rival camps are set to clash on the racecourse just across the Avenue Hocquart de Turtot when the Charlie Appleby-trained Coroebus and Bathrat Leon contest the Prix Jacques le Marois at Deauville on Sunday, and they warmed up with some seven-figure sparring during the opening acts of France’s flagship yearling sale.

Godolphin’s Anthony Stroud and David Loder were hidden away down the corridor to the right of the auctioneer, while Yahagi stood with his entourage on the top tier of the bustling auditorium. After a protracted back and forth it was Godolphin who brought the gavel down at a cool €1.6 million.

“They’re not making any more Shamardals,” said Stroud after signing the ticket. “He’s been a fantastic stallion for Godolphin, as you know he stood at Kildangan, and we’re very pleased to get him. He’s from a very good family, from an excellent farm and has a stallion’s pedigree as well so I’m delighted that Godolphin have got him.

Anthony Stroud signed for the Shamardal colt for GodolphinCredit: Arqana/Zuzanna Lupa

"We all thought he had excellent conformation, he’s an excellent mover and has a good outlook. He’s a fine horse and from such an eminent breeder. Normally he wouldn’t come on the market but we’re delighted to be able to acquire him.”

Shamardal, whose best progeny include the likes of Blue Point, Pinatubo and Tarnawa, died at the age of 18 in April 2020, meaning this is his final crop of yearlings.

The colt was offered by Gestut Ammerland, who bred the blue-blooded youngster from Lady Frankel, winner of the Prix de Lieurey and third in the Prix de l'Opera during her time in training with Andre Fabre. In turn, Lady Frankel is out of Lady Vettori, best known as the dam of Lope De Vega, who is closely related to this colt, being another son of Shamardal.

Lope De Vega carried the Ammerland colours to victory in the Prix du Jockey Club and Poule d'Essai des Poulains before retiring to Ballylinch Stud, from where he has sired 15 Group/Grade 1 winners. There is real depth to the family as Lady Vettori produced three other black-type performers besides Lope De Vega and Lady Frankel, including Bal De La Rose, dam of the Group 1-winning Danceteria.

“That price was over my expectations, although it’s always extremely hard to know what to expect,” said Ammerland’s bloodstock adviser Crispin de Moubray. “I knew the horse was extremely popular, he had close to 150 shows since Thursday morning, but at that sort of level it all depends on who faces up to each other. He reached that price because the underbidder, Yoshito Yahagi, obviously really liked the horse.

"He saw the horse only once and he looked at him for a very long time. I told him he was the last Shamardal [for sale] in the world and he said, ‘Well maybe one day it will be mine!’ I had no idea he was going to bid up to that level and if he hadn’t we’d have probably sold the horse for a lot less so it makes a big difference. It’s something you can’t anticipate in advance though. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t.”

Best known as a high-achieving owner-breeder operation, Dietrich von Boetticher’s Ammerland will also be selling at BBAG as well as Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale, where they will offer a Galileo brother to Waldgeist who was bred in partnership with Newsells Park Stud.

Explaining the decision to bring the Shamardal colt and others to market, De Moubray said: “People accept that we don’t normally sell horses, it’s not a commercial operation and last year the Shamardal would have been going to Andre Fabre, but we’ve been reducing the number of horses over the last five or six years.

“We had 50 mares at one stage, which is quite a different type of organisation, and horses in training is an expensive business, even if you do come up with Waldgeist and Lope De Vega. It was decided it should become a boutique place with 12 or 15 mares and two or three go into training each year. Nothing’s eternal, unfortunately.”

Desmontils sees Star appeal

Shamardal also featured prominently in the pedigree of the second top lot as he is the damsire of the Sea The Stars colt out of Shamtee who went the way of Sebastien Desmontils of Chauvingy Global Equine at €675,000 late in the piece.

Offered by Haras du Mont dit Mont, the colt is the first foal out of the Listed-winning dam, whose page traces back to the likes of Territories and, further back, the Irish Oaks heroine Helen Street and her influential son Street Cry.

Sebastien Desmontils was acting for a Japanese clientCredit: Zuzanna Lupa

“He’s a lovely horse and the sire is very good,” said Desmontils. “Obviously the broodmare sire Shamardal is very nice and the pedigree is exceptional, it’s a stallion-making pedigree. He’s a very good mover and a very good mix between Sea The Stars and Shamardal.

"He’s been bought for my Japanese client Mr Saito. He’ll be trained in Chantilly like all the other horses Mr Saito has and will go to either Fabrice Chappet or Henri Devin.

“A lot of good judges were on him, which gave us confidence. It’s a big price to spend on buying a horse and now he needs to be good, but he has everything he needs to be successful so hopefully we’ll be lucky.”

The seven-year-old Shamtee also went through the August Sale ring, where she fetched €240,000 from Prime Equestrian.

Long story of success continues for Castillon

It took all of five lots for the half a million mark to be broken when Coolmore’s MV Magnier went to €550,000 for the Wootton Bassett filly out of Just With You offered by Haras de Castillon.

Not only is the dam a Sunday Break sister to the Meydan Group 2 winner Frankyfourfingers but she has also bred two black-type winners from five foals of racing age. Her first foal is Taos, a son of Toronado who struck in a Listed contest at Bordeaux Le Bouscat, while her third produce is the Camelot filly Penja, winner of the Group 3 Prix de Psyche and runner-up in the Prix de la Nonette.

“It’s a great way to start the year,” said Castillon’s Benoit Joffrey. “We’re very pleased and she’s a lovely filly. She’s been popular all week and she’s from a family we’ve had for a long time. We hope she’s very good for her future connections and hopefully we’ll see her on the racetrack at a high level.

Lot 5 was from a well-established Haras de Castillon familyCredit: Zuzanna Lupa

“We still have the mare, she has a lovely Siyouni colt foal at foot but we didn’t cover her this year as she foaled late. We have all the family and there’s plenty to come in the future. We bred the third dam, Texalouna, second dam, Texaloula, and Just With You. My grandfather [Robert] and my father [Bernard] bought the fourth dam, Texan Beauty, in the 80s so it’s been a long story.”

The six-figure filly is from the final French-bred crop of Wootton Bassett, who stood the 2020 season at Haras d'Etreham at a fee of €40,000. He switched to Coolmore the following season and spent 2022 at a career-high €150,000. Despite the Wootton Bassett filly fetching such a significant sum, Penja remains the dam’s most valuable offspring as she sold to Blandford Bloodstock for €1.2m at last year’s Arqana Arc Sale.

Asked for his expectations for trade as the sale progresses, Joffrey said: “We’ve been really busy showing and you can see there’s a lot of people interested in buying. It’s started well for us and I’m sure it’ll be good for the rest of the week as well.”

Al Shira'aa snap up Native Trail sibling

The €550,000 mark was hit for a second time later in the session when Kieran Lalor secured the Siyouni half-sister to Native Trail on behalf of Al Shira'aa Racing. The well-related filly is out of the Observatory mare Needleleaf, who was acquired by breeder Haras d’Haspel through MAB Agency for 60,000gns at the Tattersalls December Mares Sale in 2015.

“She’ll probably stay in France and we’re very excited to have her,” said Lalor. “It’s a young and very active family, there’s black type littered all over the page and there’s lots more to come. Siyouni is a very good stallion and obviously the mare is doing her part so hopefully there’ll be plenty of updates in a few years’ time.”

Al Shira'aa Racing secured the sibling to the top-class Native TrailCredit: Zuzanna Lupa

Needleleaf, whose Kingman filly fetched €950,000 from Godolphin at last year’s August Sale, hails from a strong Juddmonte pedigree as she is a sister to African Rose, winner of the Haydock Sprint Cup, and Helleborine, who won the Group 3 Prix d'Aumale and later bred the Coventry Stakes scorer Calyx.

The Siyouni filly is the latest eye-catching acquisition for Al Shira'aa, the racing vehicle of Sheikha Fatima bint Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Last year the operation went on something of a spending spree to secure female siblings to the likes of Bolshoi Ballet, Broome, Mother Earth, Poetic Flare and Waldgeist.

Expanding on their approach at the sales, Lalor said: “When the right stock is available we’re going to expand, not massively but within reason. When the quality is there, we’re going to be there shopping for it. It’s not about numbers for us, it’s about quality. We’ll take it bit by bit, slow and steady.

“If the physical matches up with the page and there’s successful siblings there then it’s a pretty easy call to make. There’s a long-term aim with these fillies because we want to buy fillies who can race successfully and then retire back into the broodmare band and then become our producers later on. That’s our goal.”

Lalor added: “We have Willie McCreery and Ger Lyons training for us in Ireland and Pascal Bary and Carlos Laffon-Parias in France. There are horses in the US too with Neil Drysdale and Christophe Clement. We’re still small but we’re growing so we might expand into Britain.”

The Al Shira'aa colours have been carried to success by the likes of Mutamakina, winner of the Grade 1 EP Taylor Stakes, and Group 2 Prix de la Nonette scorer Rumi, whose three-parts Galileo sister brought a bid of €580,000 from Lalor later in the session.

Kieran Lalor has been in action regularly for the Al Shira'aa operationCredit: Zuzanna Lupa

The Monceaux-consigned filly is out of Secrete, making her a full-sister to the Listed-winning Solage and also a three-parts sibling to Normandy Eagle, a Group 3-placed son of New Approach. Secrete is a sibling to three black-type performers, most notably the Group 1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud winner Plumania.

“Obviously we own Rumi and we feel like she’s very much a Group 1-quality filly,” said Lalor. “Hopefully this will look like a cheap purchase next weekend [after the Prix Jean Romanet]. All of the siblings are closely related to this one and it’s a very good family.

"There are Group 1s all over the page and she’s by Galileo, who’s the best stallion in my lifetime and he’s also a very good broodmare sire, which is important for us. She’s a very elegant individual with a typical Galileo walk.”

Coolmore and White Birch aiming for Arc updates

The partnership between Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm and Coolmore has already had a significant impact this sales season as they joined forces to secure the $2.3m Gun Runner colt who topped the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale.

The ownership group has another exciting prospect to look forward to after Michel Zerolo of Oceanic Bloodstock went to €460,000 for the Gleneagles filly out of Onshore from Camas Park and Glenvale Studs. That lineage makes the filly a three-parts sister to Onesto, the son of Frankel whose burgeoning record is headed by victory in the Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris.

Lot 75 was a sibling of Grand Prix de Paris scorer OnestoCredit: Zuzanna Lupa

When asked what appealed about the filly, Zerolo said: "Everything! I bought her for Peter Brant in partnership with MV Magnier. The pedigree is there, she’s a half-sister to a really good horse who could be an Arc winner. She may look very cheap in a few months.”

The filly was bred by Diamond Creek Farm, who bought Onshore for 320,000gns at the 2016 Tattersalls December Sale carrying to Frankel. The daughter of Sea The Stars is from one of the most prolific families in the stud book, as she is out of Kalima, who not only bred Jet Away but is a sister to Juddmonte’s blue hen Hasili, dam of five Group/Grade 1 winners and the influential stallion Dansili.

Zerolo also went to €580,000 for the Siyouni colt out of Sapa Inca on behalf of the Brant-Magnier axis later in the session. The dam is a Listed-winning daughter of Galileo whose full-siblings include Johannes Vermeer and Elizabeth Browning. Being by Siyouni and out of a Galileo mare also means the colt is bred on the cross responsible for Sottsass and St Mark’s Basilica, both of whom stand on Coolmore’s Irish stallion roster.

The delighted consignor, Henri Bozo of Ecurie de Monceaux, said: “The mare has a beautiful colt by the same stallion as it’s that magic mating of Siyouni and Galileo. This was a lovely colt, he looks quite precocious and I’m very happy. Coolmore have been great customers of ours since the beginning so it’s great to see them buying this colt.”

Lot 122 commanded an impressive €580,000Credit: Zuzanna Lupa

Reflecting on the day’s trade, Bozo said: “It hasn’t been an easy day but we’ve sold nearly everything. So far there’s been a bit of first day syndrome, but I hear the good horses are coming and the sale is not over yet!”

The recalibrated August Sale format, with a longer opening session and parts one and two merged across the three days, means year-on-year comparisons lose their usual relevance, but by the close of selling 133 lots had been offered and 112 sold for a clearance of 84 per cent. Those transactions generated turnover of €19,862,000, an average of €177,339 and a median of €120,000.

The August Sale continues on Sunday with the post-racing session, which begins at 5.30pm local time (4.30pm BST), featuring the brother to Sottsass (Lot 154). You can view the catalogue here

More to read:

James Thomas's Arqana preview

'The August Sale is a big part of our economic strategy so it’s definitely a big deal' - James Thomas speaks to Ecurie des Monceaux's Henri Bozo

'He impressed then and has progressed from there' - Ballylinch's Waldgeist colt