Just a couple of days after Australia watched Americain stumble on the road to his Melbourne Cup defence there was once again plenty of Aussie interest at Deauville in France.

This time it was for their yearling sales which are continuing to attract growing interest at an international level.

There were plenty of Australians in the mix but none could match the lofty efforts of Paul Fudge who paid the highest price for any horse on day one of the sale.

Fudge picked up a colt by sire Invincible Spirit on behalf of his Waratah Thoroughbreds operation.

It’s the latest acquisition for his NSW based stables which have rapidly become a well recognised enterprise.

The latest winner to come through Waratah Thoroughbreds was as early as last weekend when Sienna Red won for Joe Pride at Warwick Farm.

Fudge ended up shelling out a cool 440,000 Euros for his horse which is out of the dam Elle Galante who was placed at stakes level.

She is the full sister to Elle Danzig, a German champion who’s progeny includes four black type horses, one being Elle Shadow.

He was forced into a bidding war with a representative of Badgers Bloodstock, amazingly on behalf of another Australian investor Paul Makin.
“He was just a lovely horse, who I thought was the pick of today’s yearlings” Fudge’s agent Mr. Goodobody said.

“He’s by an excellent sire from an excellent nursery and overall ticked all the boxes.

“He’ll be trained in France and we’ll decide who will have him.”

All up the first day of the Deauville sale brought in €9,103,000 ($A12.29m) at an average of €133,303 ($A180,000) with 68 yearlings sold at a clearance rate of 65 percent..

In terms of horses clearing the €200,000 barrier there were 15 all up sold to  11 different buyers.

Coolmore were also well represented at the sale with the pickup of a colt by Montjeu out of Minaccia for €340,000 .

Their rep Demi O’Byrne ended the day with three purchases all up for a total value of €770,000.

The Montjeu colt is a half brother to Macleya which is part of family well renowned throughout Germany and includes the Japanese Derby winner Eishin Flash.

Coolmores other buy was a colt by Galileo worth €260,000.which is a half brother to the G1 Prix Jean Prat winner Stormy River .

The Japanese contingent was a conspicuous force at this year’s sales and already the Hirai have two nice types headlined by  a €280,000 Dalakhani colt from the family Eishin Flash.

fellow Japanese investor Masamichi Hayashi also picked up  two yearlings top lined by a Montjeu colt at the value of  €200,000.

The Germans wern’t to be overshadowed either, the continual growth of horse racing in the country shown by BBA Germany which purchased three horses all for six figure sums with the top being  €260,000 for an Oasis Dream colt form the family of Americain.
The man presiding over the sales is Eric Hoyeau who says a new selling format this year has made it hard to judge results compared to previous years.

That being said he maintains that results are good and are looking to get even better as the week progresses

“Most of the key indicators are encouraging, notably the average price of €133,000 and the number of individual buyers above €200,000 with several of them new players,” he said.

“The clearance rate is disappointing yet trade was picking up as the evening went on, which
bodes well for the rest of the sale.”