From Tuesday Deauville is once again the meeting point for the European yearling trade, where Arqana this year condenses its big October sale into four days. The sales company’s Scandinavian representative Morten Buskop has been going through the horses since Sunday.
Arqana’s October Yearling Sale has been a fixture in the European sales calendar for almost twenty years. This year 668 yearlings go through the ring from Tuesday 20 to Friday 23 October.
The first session opens on Tuesday at 11am with lots 1-197. Wednesday and Thursday both begin at 1pm, with lots 198-348 and lots 349-499 respectively, while the closing session on Friday at 11am holds lots 500-668.
From five days to four
That is a noticeably shorter sale than last year, when Arqana took five days over almost 800 yearlings. The explanation is a new yard.
The sales company has brought Cour Morny into use — a historic yard in the Deauville training centre, a few steps from the sales complex itself, modernised throughout to meet current requirements. It holds 80 boxes with their own showing areas and an area reserved exclusively for welcoming buyers. That is the expansion which makes it possible to stage the sale over four days instead of five.
Zarak, Siyouni and twelve first-crop sires
Tuesday’s opening session is also the strongest part of the catalogue. The sires on offer include Camelot, Dark Angel, Justify, Kingman, Night Of Thunder, No Nay Never, Sea The Stars, Siyouni, Too Darn Hot, Wootton Bassett — and Zarak.
Added to those are twelve stallions with their very first crop in the ring: Ace Impact, Chaldean, Erevann, Good Guess, Little Big Bear, Mishriff, Modern Games, Onesto, Paddington, Vadeni, Native Trail and Shaquille.
Paddington has himself been through the ring at Deauville in October, before going on to win four Group 1 races. Now he returns as a sire.
Arqana highlights lot 43, a sister to this year’s Grand Prix de Paris (Gr.1) winner Maltese Cross, lots 132 and 133, a son and a daughter of the dual Group 1 winner Watch Me, and lot 50, an Ace Impact colt from the family behind Magic Wand and Diamond Necklace.
From Treve to Zakopane
The sale’s history carries names such as Treve, Charm Spirit, Natagora, Sistercharlie, Audarya, The Grey Gatsby, Avenir Certain, Iresine and, indeed, Paddington.
Read from a Scandinavian angle the list looks different — but no less good.
“This is where Scandinavian Derby winners such as Square de Luynes, Privilegiado and Dorcia have been found — and most recently Zakopane, who is the sale’s latest big star as far as we are concerned”, says Arqana’s Scandinavian representative, Morten Buskop.
Zakopane is the best present-day example. He went through the ring as lot 101 in October 2023, when Stall Perlen, through Peter & Ross Doyle Bloodstock, gave 420,000 euros for the chestnut Zarak colt out of the Dansili mare Ashaaqah. He was the most expensive lot of the day and of the whole week.
Today he is a four-year-old gelding with Jan-Erik Neuroth, won the Svenskt St. Leger last year and has this season been second in the Oslo Cup (L), winner of the Luca Brasi Cup and fourth in the Stockholm Cup International (Gr.3), before taking Skånska Fältrittklubbens Jubileumlöpning (L) at Jägersro two weeks ago.
And his sire, Zarak, has yearlings in the ring as early as Tuesday.
Buskop in place in Deauville
Over the years Morten Buskop has been behind numerous deals at this very sale for Danish, Swedish and Norwegian clients. He has been in Deauville since Sunday and has gone through the horses ahead of the sale.
“As always I am available to anyone who would like assistance during the four days of the sale”, he says.
Morten Buskop can be reached on +45 26 95 01 34 og mbuskop@live.com.
