Brant swoops for French 1,000 Guineas heroine Precieuse

Precieuse, the runaway winner of the Poule d'Essai des Pouliches, has been sold to big-spending US-based owner Peter Brant of White Birch Farm.

The daughter of Tamayuz - bred by her previous owners, Brendan and Anne-Marie Hayes of Knocktoran Stud - is now expected to be supplemented for the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot.

"We were happy to keep the filly and continue racing her, but we were made a very good offer by Peter Brant and economics dictate, unfortunately," explained Brendan Hayes, who added that Precieuse would remain in training with Fabrice Chappet and continue to be ridden by Olivier Peslier.

"Peter's very much a racing man - he raced Gulch and Triptych, and has a very nice broodmare band, so they'll be covering her with very good sires. I believe they're interested in inbreeding to the dam of Urban Sea, and sending her to Galileo next year has been mooted, which would be fantastic."

Despite the decision to sell, Hayes made no secret of his affection for Precieuse, and revealed that Brant was not the first person to make them an offer for the filly.

"We really fancied her from the get-go," he said. "We were offered quite a lot of money for her as a yearling by Arab interests but we refused it. So, needless to say, when the gamble paid off it was wonderful.

"It's great because we have her half-sister, Peut Etre, here and she was a very good filly - her record doesn't look as good as she actually was," he continued.

"She's got a Lope De Vega colt foal and is in foal to Make Believe at the moment. We still have Precieuse's dam, Zut Alors, who we think is in foal to Tamayuz. We bred Last Tycoon, he was by Try My Best and we sent the dam back to Try My Best - who was a very inexpensive sire at the time -and we bred The Perfect Life, who also went on to become a Group winner. So lightning can strike twice."

White Birch Farm signed for at least 20 lots from the Wildenstein Stables dispersal held by Goffs in 2016, including Beauty Parlour, a Classic-winning daughter of Deep Impact, for €1.6 million, and Amerique, a daughter of Galileo and three-time Group 1 winner Aquarelliste, for €975,000.

White Birch was also active at other sales, including when parting with $1.1m for the Grade 2-winning Candy Ride mare Paid Up Subscriber at Fasig-Tipton. The five-year-old ran a gallant second to Songbird in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps Stakes at Belmont on Saturday, where she carried the colours of Brant and his associate Joseph Allen.

Brant has also bought Prix Penelope winner and Prix de Diane entrant Sistercharlie in a private deal, and his operation celebrated its first winner last Thursday when Parauari, a three-year-old colt bought for €150,000 from the Wildenstein Stables dispersal at Goffs, landed a 1m1f event at Dieppe.