Freddy Powell

The whole point of the breeze-ups is that the functionality of a pedigree is on display. Nowadays, in fact, breeze times are treated as though rendering more or less redundant all the painstaking surmise of the yearling sales. Pinhookers, having seen so many offbeat sires achieve knockout sales, can prioritize "run"—knowing that lot of prospectors won't even bother looking at the catalogue until the lots have shown their wares. But it's for precisely that reason that European breeze-up consignors have increasingly been able to repair a dismal separation between the...

The four-day Arqana Vente d'Elevage concluded on Tuesday, with four fillies and mares making €1 million or more, and 668 horses (77%) marked as sold for a gross of €47,135,000. Overall, the average was down 8% to €70,561, however, the median rose to €20,000, an increase of 16% off of 2022's mark. The sale was topped by Group 1 winner Place Du Carrousel (Ire) (Lope De Vega {Ire}) at €4.025 million from leading buyer Portofino Bloodstock. Taking just Tuesday's trade into account, 109 lots sold (79%) for a gross of...

There were emotional scenes in the early parts of the Saturday session at Arqana when Without Words (Mendelssohn), who Mick Murphy and Sarah O'Connell of Longways Stables failed to sell at the breeze-up here in May, was knocked down to Justin Casse on behalf of Joseph O'Brien for €450,000.  Without Words carried O'Connell's colours to victory on her second start for trainer Francois Rohaut at Toulouse. There was a kaleidoscope of significance to the win and subsequent sale with Murphy revealing afterwards that his wife had recently been diagnosed with...

Arqana boss Freddy Powell says he is optimistic the sales company can end the year on a high as leading vendors Gwen Monneraye of la Motteraye and Charles Brière of the Fairway Consignment reported strong footfall on the eve of the breeding stock sale.  The sales figures for the breeding stock sale in Britain and the foal sales in Ireland took a dip on the whole this year and Tattersalls chairman Edmond Mahony said 'certain sectors are facing into a headwind' when acknowledging the struggles facing operators in the middle...

Arqana boss Freddy Powell and consignors Guillaume Vitse and Anna Sundstrom have said that they are optimistic that the sales company's return to a V2 format will pay off in spades in Deauville on Tuesday.  After a helter-skelter August Sale that saw figures rise dramatically across the board, including the aggregate by a massive 15% to almost €40m at an average of over €236,000, the Arqana sales complex took a well-earned pause on Monday on the eve of the V2 Sale.  Sundstrom reported many breeze-up handlers and French trainers to...

DEAUVILLE, France--Over the next three evenings, around 280 youngsters considered to be the cream of the French yearling crop will pass through the sale ring in Deauville, where this time last year the collective bidding stopped just north of €50 million to bring record returns at Arqana. The term 'record-breaking trade' has appeared countless times in this and other publications, and frequent rejigging of sales formats allows that to be claimed perhaps more often than it genuinely should be, but the 2022 August Sale really was quite the blockbuster by...

DEAUVILLE, France--It would seem that Arqana has pulled off the impossible. Ask ten different people at the sales a certain question and you'd usually end up with ten different opinions. But there is one thing on which everyone patrolling the sales grounds in Deauville can apparently agree, and that is that a pretty stellar line-up of horses has been assembled for the Arqana Breeze-up Sale. The only thing they can't agree on is which horse is likely to top the sale. We'll know that by Saturday evening, and it is...

The North American breeze-up calendar is a busy one, typically offering around 2,500 juveniles for sale over the course of the spring. And while all eyes will be on Ocala this week, American two-year-old buyers in recent years have been rewarded by adding another sale to their calendar: the Arqana Breeze Up. Held this year on May 13, with breeze shows on the 11th and 12th, the catalogue offers 43 two-year-olds by North American stallions, including Accelerate, American Pharoah, Blame, Candy Ride (Arg), Catholic Boy, Curlin, Into Mischief, Justify, Medaglia...

'Tis the season to be jolly and, on the eve of the December Breeding Stock Sale where a number of high-class racemares and broodmare prospects, including powerful drafts from Godolphin, the Aga Khan and the Wertheimer et Frere consignment, there was giddy excitement in the air at Arqana. Fresh from snapping up the 5.4 million gns sale-topper Alcohol Free (Ire) (No Nay Never) at Tattersalls last week, Yuesheng Zhang was kept busy viewing horses with BBA Ireland's Michael Donohoe while representatives of Juddmonte, Moyglare Stud and a host of high-end...

Aside from perhaps the odd delay at the Channel Tunnel for British-based visitors heading to Deauville, the Arqana August Sale should be just about back to normal this year for the first time since 2019. A loaded plane will jet in direct from Saratoga on Thursday morning, when the scene will be set for three days of trade at the auction which routinely acts as the bellwether for the European yearling market. Small changes to the format can be found this year in the fact that the August Sale is...

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...

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...