Caen (AFP)

The most prestigious 18-month-old yearlings auction in France, the August sales of Deauville, show a sharp rebound, after three years of decline, announced Monday to AFP organizers.

The sales turnover, which began Saturday and should end Monday night, "has already significantly exceeded - by 2 million euros - the turnover of the three days of last year" to reach more 38 million euros at 17:00, told AFP Alix Choppin, development manager of Arqana, second yearlings sales agency after Tattersalls in England.

Sales are expected to end by 9:30 pm, Choppin said.

In 2018, turnover fell for the third consecutive year, by 1%, after -4% in 2017 and -4.8% in 2016. In 2015 however, it had reached a record with 42 million euros.

The highest price was reached on Sunday with a daughter of star stallion Dubawi and Prudenzia sold for 1.625 million euros to the Godolphin stable driven by Dubai emir Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum who made the trip in Deauville, according to Arqana. The record set in 2015 is 2.6 million euros.

The rebound in sales is due in part to "the presence of many buyers with large budgets, from all over the world, and in numbers far greater than in previous years," said Choppin. "The main reason for satisfaction is the diversity of buyers in the upper end of the market," she added.

In addition to the Emir of Dubai, among horse buyers over 500,000 euros, "a young Japanese coach, Mitsu Nakauchida, who bought on Sunday 1.5 million a son of another star stallion, Galileo, while it had been four years since he came to Deauville and had never managed to buy, "she said. Also in this category are an English buyer, a group of buyers from Dubai, buyers from Abu Dhabi, Qatar, the United States, Norway or Ireland, said Choppin.

In addition "even before the buyers saw the horses, the feedback on the simple quality of the catalog, of the genetics, was excellent, and the physics of the horses presented was as athletic as the pedigree promised them", added Ms. Choppin.

Arqana assures that "a large part of these horses will stay in France and will contribute to the French horse industry".

© 2019 AFP