Consign Ltd Hoping Lightning Can Strike Twice at Arqana with Half Sovereign

[Wandering Eyes]

DEAUVILLE, FRANCE — For the second time in as many years, the young team at Consign Ltd is bidding to close out the sales season in style when high-class filly Half Sovereign is offered as a wildcard during Saturday's session of the Arqana Vente d'Elevage.

When the TDN cameras visited Harriet Jones and Chloe Battam in July last year, the newly-founded Consign Ltd was preparing to get the ball rolling with a bumper draft numbering 18 horses at the Tattersalls July Sale.

Then, less than five months later, Jones and Battam were able to celebrate the burgeoning operation's most significant result yet when the three-year-old Dawn Charger (Soldier's Call) sold to Katsumi Yoshida's Northern Farm for €300,000, having won three races, including the G3 Prix Eclipse, in an 11-race career for Karl Burke.

Now, with another year under their belts, Jones is keeping her fingers firmly crossed that lightning can strike twice in Deauville when Half Sovereign goes through the ring as lot 195. Last seen winning the G3 Prix Miesque at Chantilly, her fifth success from seven career starts to date, the daughter of Ten Sovereigns was bought by Burke for just 12,000gns at the Tattersalls Somerville Yearling Sale.

“She's another Karl Burke special!” joked Jones, whose association with the Middleham trainer goes back over a decade. “I worked for Karl for 14 years and did many trips over here whilst I was with him. I've built up a good relationship with him and we're very thankful to him and the owners who have decided to support us as we're just starting out. It's great to have these kinds of trainers backing you and it shows that people can trust you.”

The tough two-year-old Kaadi (Soldier's Call) was another to reward Burke's trust in Consign Ltd when changing hands last year for €100,000 at the Arqana Arc Sale. She's since won a Listed contest at La Teste de Buch for Gousserie Racing, but, in Half Sovereign, there's clearly a feeling in the camp that Consign Ltd is dealing with its most exciting proposition yet.

Describing Dawn Charger's sale last year as “massive”, Jones continued, “Arqana has been very good to us. To bring a black-type filly from my old boss and to get the result of €300,000 in our first year as a consignor was great.

“I think Half Sovereign perhaps has a bigger profile than Dawn Charger had, with winning the five times this year and being very unlucky in the sales race at Newmarket where she was just touched off. She's a highly progressive individual.

“She's very versatile – she goes on quick ground and on soft ground – and she's proven that she's a very tough and consistent filly. She's actually quite a big two-year-old and she definitely looks like a filly that would improve again as a three-year-old. She'll be a great racing prospect and also a breeding prospect for somebody.”

She added, “We've had all of the right people coming to the door. I'd be absolutely over the moon if we could produce what we did last year and there is no reason why she can't – she's a great horse for us to be able to offer.”

If Consign Ltd is a relatively new name in the catalogue for the Vente d'Elevage, then the Aga Khan Studs draft is arguably the cornerstone of a sale that draws such a large variety of international breeders to Deauville year after year.

In this year of all years for the operation, which brought an unprecedented first on Sunday when brilliant homebred Calandagan (Gleneagles) won the Japan Cup, attention now turns to the consignment of 29 fillies and mares that was also attracting all of the right people during inspections on Friday morning.

Pedigrees simply don't come much better than some of those on offer this weekend, certainly not in the case of Darousha (lot 171), a Redoute's Choice half-sister to another star turn for the Aga Khan Studs this year in the G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe hero Daryz (Sea The Stars).

“We are presenting to breeders the opportunity to enter some wonderful families,” said Pierre Gasnier, manager of the French studs. “You can name the sister of our Arc winner, Daryz, Darousha, who is in foal to Zarak. She is a mare from a wonderful Aga Khan family and in foal to one of our best stallions, himself from a very good family, being a son of Zarkava.

“We also have Siyouni's sister in foal to Vadeni and plenty of young fillies, both in and out of training. Hopefully, they will go to good homes and they will please their next operation, I'm sure.”

Certainly, the list of operations that have reaped the rewards from investing in a filly or mare from the Aga Khan Studs in recent years is a substantial one. Just this year alone, Balantina (Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies' Turf), Dynamic Pricing (Just A Game Stakes), Royal Patronage (Canterbury Stakes) and Zavateri (National Stakes) have all won top-level races, having been born to mares previously sold by the Aga Khan Studs.

Similarly, Caliyza (Le Havre) – a half-sister to Calandagan, no less – first sold for €100,000 when featuring in the Aga Khan Studs draft at this sale two years ago, then for 155,000gns at last year's Tattersalls December Mares Sale. On Monday, she returned to Park Paddocks where she was bought by Ace Stud for 850,000gns.

“It is difficult and to organise this takes a lot of thinking,” Gasnier said of the compilation of the consignment each year, no doubt particularly challenging when virtually every filly and mare on the list of potentials is blessed with a blue-blooded pedigree, cultivated over many decades.

“But the goal is to keep the broodmare band to a set number and we also have very good fillies each year coming to stud. That's the reason why we have to sell some. To present them at public auction is never easy but, at the same time, it gives the opportunity for a family to expand and to show its true ability to breed champions everywhere in the world.

“When you think about it, one of the best two-year-olds in England [Zavateri] is coming from the Zarkava family and we sold his dam [Zeroua, a daughter of Siyouni who made €90,000 at this sale in 2021] as a maiden mare. That's what it's all about and that's what you want to see.

“It is the goal of the Aga Khan operation to keep improving the stud book and the thoroughbred. We race to breed and always to improve families. Regardless of whom it [success on the racecourse] happens for, it's magnificent. That's what we wish for everybody and for the sport to live as long as possible.”

As for what the future might hold for the Aga Khan Studs, clues will be in the offing this weekend when young sires Erevann (14 foals) and Vadeni (7) are represented by their first foals.

If you happened to miss it, be sure to read Thursday's TDN feature in which Fanny Cypres, from the nominations and client relations department at the Aga Khan Studs, provided the lowdown on their first representatives, likewise the connections of the five other stallions in the same boat – Ace Impact (11), Angel Bleu (3), Belbek (4), Mishriff (7) and Onesto (9).

Among Mishriff's septet of foals is lot 473, who will be led through the ring on Sunday by Henry Powell, the 16-year-old son of Haras du Lieu des Champs owner Richard Powell, nephew of Arqana's Freddy Powell, and grandson of David Powell.

The offering will see Henry become the third generation of the Powell family to sell a horse at Arqana, with the Mishriff colt being the first horse the teenager has owned by himself. He is the second foal out of Roziyna (Sea The Stars), who was purchased by the Powells at Tattersalls for 27,000gns in foal to Victor Ludorum. That colt, Rozarion, broke his maiden last Saturday at Limoges.

“That's a nice update for him,” said Richard Powell. “It's quite exciting for Henry. The pedigree has really moved forward since we bought the mare. This dam is the sister of Rayif and Rayevka; Rayif ran third in the G1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere and Rayevka ran third in the G1 Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot in June, so the family is really on the rise.”

Powell said that the foal's box is Henry's first stop each day when he comes home from school.

“He has been very involved in the prep,” he said. “When he does the evening tour when he's back from school every day, he spends 15 minutes with the foal, talking to him and spending time with him. He's in love with his mare and his foal.”

The first mare will be in the ring at 10am local time on Saturday. The catalogue for the opening session comprises 248 lots and features a mix of mares, fillies and foals.

The post Consign Ltd Hoping Lightning Can Strike Twice at Arqana with Half Sovereign appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

View the full article