A colt by Sea The Moon topped the bill Oct. 26, the final of five days of trading at the Arqana October Yearling Sale, which petered out after a barnstorming first three days in Deauville.
Offered by Haras d'Ombreville as Lot 729, the colt is a half brother to the listed-placed Diadema whose sire, De Treville, is an Oasis Dream half brother of Too Darn Hot, sire of Saturday's Futurity Trophy Stakes (G1) winner Hotazhell.
It was the only transaction to hit the €50,000 (US$54,012, €1=US$1.08) mark at Arqana Saturday.
It was a sale of three parts but really two halves, as the five-day October extravaganza showed defined differences in the results posted by the first two parts and the third part, which ran over two days.
The Oct. 22 opening session was the elite Part 1 which saw two colts sell for €500,000 (US$540,550) apiece, tying for the second-highest price in the sale's history and just shy of the record of €525,000 which was set four years ago.
Even though 10 fewer horses were offered during Part 1 this year compared to last year, records were smashed across the board with the sale registering its best average, median, and aggregate figures.
For just the first time in its existence, Part 1 returned a six-figure average of €105,000 (US$113,397) which was a jump of 15% year-on-year while the median grew by a more modest 5%. In line with the increase in average was the improvement in aggregate, with €17,830,000 (US$19,255,899) turned over during the single session of trading. That represents a leap of 14% from the equivalent day last year when €15,631,000 was traded.
That was generated by the sale of 171 horses, one more than in 2023, with the clearance rate improving from 83% last year to 86% Tuesday.
Part 2 of the sale was the middle tier of the cake but some of the figures it posted demonstrated even more statistically significant increases than the preceding section. Both this year and last year, 290 yearlings were offered during Part 2 of the sale with the clearance rate dropping from 87% last year to 80% in 2024.
Part 2's average climbed by 26% to €37,942 (US$40,976) from €30,198 while the median grew by an even more impressive 30% year-on-year from €23,500 to €30,000 (US$32,399) Part 2's aggregate of €8,840,500 (US$9,547,740) represented growth of 16% in 12 months.
As anticipated, Part 3 was a very different ball game with declines in all the key indicators. Although 31% more were offered than in 2023, turnover only increased by 7% from €2,318,500 last year to €2,473,000 (US$2,670771).
The average dropped 18% from €15,055 last year to €12,303 (US$13,287) this week while the year-on-year decrease in median of €10,000 (US$10,800) was 20%.
Reflecting on the five days of trade, Arqana's president Olivier Delloye and Freddy Powell, director of communications, commented: "These last five days have ended in the best of ways and we can only be satisfied with the results."
