Partnerships Key To Success Of Monceaux

While most sales consignors operate at a range of sales, some of them in different countries, for Ecurie des Monceaux, the entire sales season hinges on what happens over this coming Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

The leading vendor at Arqana's August Sale for the last six years, Monceaux is effectively a private consignor, selling only horses bred at the farm by its increasing band of influential partners. With one Speightstown colt having been withdrawn, 34 yearlings will be offered for sale from this weekend. They include one of the pair of first yearlings by Triple Crown winner American Pharoah to be catalogued in Europe. The duo will be discussed in a separate feature tomorrow.

That gem aside, there's plenty of depth to the Monceaux treasure chest, which arrives in Deauville with updates about as fresh as they come, including Saturday night's GI Beverly D S. victory for graduate Sistercharlie (Fr) (Myboycharlie {Ire}), whose Charm Spirit (Ire) half-brother sells on Saturday as lot 43.

“We don't want to go over the kind of number we have now,” says Henri Bozo, the frontman for the various partnerships behind Monceaux who oversees the day-to-day running of the 282-hectare farm roughly half an hour from Deauville. “More or less it has been rising year after year but in the last two or three years we are where we want to be number-wise.”

The results in the ring illustrate the draft's importance to France's flagship yearling sale. Last year alone, the Monceaux draft contributed €9,587,000 to Arqana's August aggregate of €38,505,500—almost exactly a quarter of turnover. That success can only be sustained, however, if the annual yearling draft continues to produce racehorses of a decent calibre.

Bozo says, “We are all very sure that the main thing is to keep throwing good results on the track and this year we have 11 individual 3-year-olds who have earned black type, which is great and it's really exciting. We really orientate our policy on achieving that. Of course, we are very happy to have very good sales results but the ultimate result is definitely on the racecourse.”

Monceaux graduates to have passed the ultimate test this year include Fiona Carmichael's G1 Prix Jean Prat winner Intellogent (Fr), the flagbearer for the first crop of Intello (Ger). His dam Nuit Polaire (Ire) (Kheleyf) was herself bought by Monceaux from the August Sale of 2009 and she has a filly from the first crop of Gleneagles (Ire) (lot 8) to represent her there this year.

“Nuit Polaire is the perfect example of what we've been trying to do since the beginning, to invest in either broodmares or, like her, yearlings,” Bozo explains. “We raced her, she won in Deauville and we kept her as a broodmare. Every year we're trying to buy either broodmares, fillies off the track or yearlings to race and keep them in the future.

“Nuit Polaire's yearling is very racy and she seems to have a very good mind, like Intellogent. She's got that fighting spirit and I'm happy with her. She's got scope, she walks very well and she has quality.”

Among other first-crop sires to have been visited by Monceaux mares is Shadwell's Muhaarar (GB), who has four yearlings in the August draft, including two from the farm's hallmark family of Platonic (GB) (Zafonic). The Fittocks Stud-bred mare was bought in 2004 for 100,000gns while carrying Prudenzia (Ire) Dansili {GB}), who would go on to become a listed winner for the original partnership of Ecurie des Monceaux and Lady O'Reilly's Skymarc Farm and, more importantly, the dam of Classic winner Chicquita (Ire) (Montjeu {Ire}).

Prudenzia and her half-sister, the Group 3 winner Pacifique (Ire) (Montjeu {Ire}), have each been represented in the past by seven-figure yearlings at Arqana—four in the case of Prudenzia, including this season's G2 Ribblesdale S. winner Magic Wand (Ire) (Galileo {Ire})—and their twin visit to Nunnery Stud pays a high compliment to the champion sprinter Muhaarar.

Bozo says, “We try to go to proven stallions as much as we can except when we are really keen on a young stallion who has a lot of appeal to us, and Muhaarar is one of those. He was such a good horse with a great turn of foot, a lot of speed, and he's very well bred. He's very attractive physically so we were keen to use him strongly and we did with some of our best mares. We used him to bring a bit of power and bit of a kick. About the kick we'll know next year but I'm happy with the power that I see.”

He continues, “This family of Prudenzia and Pacifique has become our foundation family and it keeps throwing very good horses. I think he haven't seen the best of Magic Wand yet. We've got quite a few fillies [from the family] on the farm and hopefully they will keep developing.”

What is also developing is the number of partners involved in the operation. Across the world in racing and bloodstock, the powerful liaisons are increasingly evident, often with a potential stallion at their core as illustrated by the link between WinStar, China Horse Club, SF Bloodstock and associated partners involved in the Triple Crown winner Justify (Scat Daddy). A similar business model operates within Monceaux, albeit one with a greater focus on the assembling of a world-class broodmare band.

“Our historical partner is definitely Lady O'Reilly, with Patricia Boutin, with whom we started. We've had a lot of success working together and we keep buying with them every year with a lot of pleasure, the same as with Andreas Putsch,” Bozo says.

The global reach of SF Bloodstock also extends to Monceaux, which is selling a Lope De Vega (Ire) half-brother to recent G2 Qatar Vintage S. winner Dark Vision (Ire) (Dream Ahead) on their behalf.

Bozo adds, “We are very happy and lucky to sell his half-brother that we've bred here on behalf of SF Bloodstock. We didn't have anything to do with Dark Vision. We didn't breed him, but we got the mare in foal to Lope De Vega.

“We also have some newer relationships, like with [Newmarket-based] Lordship Stud, and they have been investing with us and have become an important partner. We also have some complete newcomers. It's one of our aims to try to bring new people into the game on the breeding side hoping that it could turn into a racing partnership in the future. We've got new, young partners, some of them French, and for some of them it's their first partnership or their first investment in horses and I think it's important to try to make this type of thing more popular in France.

He continues, “It almost couldn't be a better time to do this. Whether it is encouraging more French owners and breeders or bringing international breeders to France. Because really in the last, say, 10 years, with the quality of stallions and the new operations coming into France, suddenly the industry has had a great resurgence. Newcomers have arrived and built up some successful operations with some of them being stallion farms, some of them breeders, some of them consignors. I think there is a very strong generation of good horsemen in France with a real will to invest in the French breeding industry so that's very exciting.”

Racing either yearling purchases or the odd homebred is an important part of Bozo's strategy when it comes to the development of the broodmare band and this exercise is not restricted to the lucrative racing programme in France.

“It works very well as long as you have the same philosophy or the same idea, which is that we are really 100% focused on breeding and we want to try to give good mares, good families, the best chance of succeeding on the race track. We don't sell our mares and we don't trade really, so as long as people are happy with that policy we are very happy to go into partnership with people we get on well with,” he says.

“We've had fillies in America with Christophe Clement for 10 years and that has been really successful and enjoyable. In the recent years we have wanted to develop a bit more of our racing side because we want to be more a part of the racing scene in France. That means we have invested in more yearling fillies which is a good way of building our future broodmare band and a chance of getting something exceptional. With our partnerships we now have more horses in training, some in France, some in South Africa and we are absolutely open to have some in England too if the opportunity arises.”

There's an old saying that pressure is for tyres and if Bozo does feel the pressure of the public manifestation of all these hopes and plans involving so many different entities coming to the boil on three days in mid-August, he does a very good job of hiding it.

“The last few days before shipping to the sale can be stressful,” he admits. “Once you are on the sales ground you do your job, there's not much else you can do except making sure the shows go well.

“There are lots of bigger French drafts now and in a way we are all rivals in the sales ring, but it is good for the whole of the French industry that so many good consignors have become involved. They are successful, they've travelled, they know people, they are professional. We are all helping each other to market the French breeding industry. It's very positive and it's good to see that when you work hard, try hard, and are given a good chance you can be successful. It can only be positive for the future.”