The Hong Kong Jockey Club purchased two colts at the Arqana Select Yearling Sale in Deauville, France, for a total cost of €700,000 (approximately HK$6.46 million).

The Club secured Lot 93 for €420,000. The athletic colt by Lope de Vega – sire of five-time G1 winner Santa Ana Lane – hails from the family of champion mare Alexander Goldrun, heroine of the 2004 Hong Kong Cup.

The chestnut is a half-brother to talented black-type performer Mantastic (Fastnet Rock), winner of the Listed Colin Hayes Memorial Cup and four other races in both France and Australia.

The auctioneer’s hammer also fell in the Club’s favour for Lot 101, a €280,000 youngster from champion three-year-old Almanzor’s first crop of yearlings. The first-season sire was the top-rated European-trained horse in 2016 with a LONGINES World’s Best Racehorse Rankings’ figure of 129 as the winner of three G1s, the Prix du Jockey Club, Irish Champion Stakes and British Champion Stakes.

The attractive chestnut is a half-brother to US G1 winner Miss Temple City (Temple City), who scored three times at the top level, all over the mile. Taking the Maker’s 46 Mile Stakes and Shadwell Turf Mile Stakes at Keeneland as well as the Matriarch Stakes at Del Mar.

Purchase details

Lot 93 c c Lope de Vega ex Foreign Legionary (Galileo) – €420,000 (approx. HK$3,877,000)

Lot 101 c c Almanzor ex Glittering Tax (Artax) – €280,000 (approx. HK$2,585,000)