Macaire sets new sale record for half-brother to star chaser Silviniaco Conti

The picturesque seaside town of Deauville played host to day one of Arqana's Summer Sale on Tuesday, and the two-day mixed auction began with a solid session of trade headlined by the cream of the French store crop.

Heading the market was a Poliglote half-brother to Paul Nicholls' seven-time Grade 1-winning chaser Silviniaco Conti, with leading French trainer Guillaume Macaire setting a new auction record for a store when going to €180,000 for the well-related two-year-old.

Macaire, who oversaw the early career of Silviniaco Conti before the horse moved to Ditcheat, secured the gelding on behalf of Pierre Pilarski, a fast food franchise owner known to many in France as the owner of leading trotting runner and stallion Bold Eagle.

"A good horse is never expensive but a bad horse is always expensive," Macaire said wryly after signing the docket.

Lot 165, who brought a new auction recordCredit: Zuzanna Lupa

The juvenile hails from a family Macaire knows well, having also handled the early careers of his siblings Ucello Conti - now a smart chaser with Gordon Elliott - and Class Conti - a Listed-placed full-brother to Tuesday's session topper. Those high achievers are out of Gazelle Lulu, a daughter of the Posse stallion Altayan.

Poliglote, who died in March aged 26, made a deep impression in the National Hunt sphere, having sired the likes of Politologue, Don Poli and Top Notch. The son of Sadler's Wells was also a more than capable sire of Flat performers, with his progeny headed by the Wertheimers' Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe heroine Solemia.

Martaline mania

Progeny of Haras de Montaigu's linchpin Martaline were among the most in-demand stores on Tuesday, with three of his sons fetching six-figure prices and a pair bringing €145,000 each.

The first of the €145,000 lots was the colt out of Viviane Royale offered by Haras des Loges, with Paul Basquin, director of Haras du Saubouas, landing the winning bid.

"He's a beautiful colt and one of the best Martalines I've seen," said Basquin. "He's from a top-class family and his movement was very good too. We'll take him back to Haras du Saubouas and have a think about his future."

The two-year-old is out the Grade 3-winning Viviane Royale, a daughter of Poliglote, and from the further family of high-class jumping talents Saint Du Chenet and Iris Royale.

The second €145,000 Martaline will head to County Tipperary, with the master of Mocklershill Willie Browne signing for the gelding out of Ile De See, a Saint Des Saints half-sister to Grand National runner-up Royal Auclair.

"He's a beautiful horse and will be even better next year when hopefully he'll be at the Derby Sale," said Browne. "It was more than I wanted to give - it's a huge price, he needs to make €200,000 next year - but he's the best-looking horse I've seen for a long time and Martalines are a very easy sell."

Browne was also in Deauville to offer a pair of juveniles during the breeze-up section of the Summer Sale, with one of his lots, a daughter of Sea The Stars, bringing €35,000 from BBA Ireland and YuLong Investments.

"If this store sells well I might give up the breeze-up game," he said with tongue firmly in cheek.

The first six-figure lot of the day came when Pascale Menard went to €120,000 for another son of Martaline, a two-year-old gelding out of Outre Mer.

The striking grey, a half-brother to the Grade 2 winner Vezelay and from the family of Arkwrisht and Welsh National winner Raz De Maree, was offered by Haras de Cercy.

"It wasn't really planned but I fell in love with the horse," Menard said of the gelding's price tag.

"He's such a spectacular individual from a beautiful family, we just had to have him. Initially it was only going to be a couple of partners but I think there might be more people interested now! The plan will probably be to resell but we also race - our only aim was getting him."

Menard, who operates out of Haras du Ma, was accompanied by John Dwan of Ballyreddin Stud, who smashed the store sale record when selling Altior's half-brother for €365,000 to Aiden Murphy and MV Magnier at last week's Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale.

Having supplied talents such as Dynaste, Disko, Terrefort, Agrapart and We Have A Dream during his 14 years on stallion duty, Martaline has built a reputation as one of the finest National Hunt stallions around.

The 19-year-old son of Linamix was ruled out of the tail end of the present covering season at Haras de Montaigu after suffering a heart problem.

Early appeal

Also breaking into six-figure territory was a gelding by Saint Des Saints offered by the Fairway Consignment, with Bertrand Le Metayer parting with €100,000 for the two-year-old.

"He's been bought for James Douglas-Gordon," said Le Metayer. "We've been lucky with Saint Des Saints before and felt that the pedigree of this horse offered some guarantees of precocity."

The gelding's page contains a host of talented Flat performers, including the Wildensteins' Group 3 winner Prairie Runner and her black type-winning offspring Prairie Star, Pacific Rim and Prairie Flower.

The Summer Sale concludes on Wednesday at 11am local time (10am GMT).

Dabirsim filly catches Barberini's eye during Summer Sale breeze-up section

The 2018 breeze-up season has not been plain sailing for many vendors, and the Flat-bred two-year-old section of the Summer Sale rather followed suit, with only 24 of 53 two-year-olds on offer changing hands for a clearance rate of just 45 per cent and turnover of €317,200 - a 28 per cent year-on-year drop. The same section 12 months earlier saw 23 of 28 juveniles sell for a clearance rate of 82 per cent and turnover of €439,500.

The top lot from the breeze-up section was the Dabirsim filly offered by Knockanglass Stables, who went the way of Federico Barberini for €57,000. The filly, who was pinhooked by Pegasus Bloodstock for €33,000 at Arqana in October, was making it third time lucky, having been entered - and subsequently withdrawn - from the Deauville Breeze-Up Sale and Goresbridge.

"She's a very nice filly physically and I'm a big fan of the sire - he seems to do particularly well with fillies too," said Barberini. "She did a very good breeze, I watched all of the breezes and she stood out and clocked a very good time."

The filly is out of the Cape Cross mare Daraa and from the family of talents such as Warrsan, Queen's Trust and Dabyah. Barberini also reflected on the latest breeze-up season, saying: "I've bought a few at the breeze-ups - the market has been hit and miss really. There was possibly an over-supply of breezers this year.

"There's a limited number of horses the breeze-up market can actually accommodate, unless the marketing side of the business manages to perform magic and find new clients.

"They need to concentrate on good-quality horses. It's been proven that you can buy a very good horse at the breeze-ups so people will keep buying them, but they can't buy them all."

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