Peintre Celebre colt tops Deauville session

Arqana's Deauville yearling sale continued Sunday with declines across the board.

Sunday's highest price at the French auction was the 205,000 euros, or about $291,100, that Agence FIPS paid for a Peintre Celebre colt consigned by Neustrian Associates (Haras du Buff, agent). The chestnut colt is out of the stakes-placed Irish River mare Hayhaat.

Consigned as Hip No. 310, the colt was one of four yearlings to bring 200,000 or more on Sunday.

The third of four sessions sold 76 yearlings for about $8,419,180 for a session average of about $110,779 and a median of about $85,200. Those figures were down across the board. Gross fell 13 percent versus last year's session, when 81 horses sold, and average and median were down 7 percent and 8 percent, respectively.

The company also logged six private sales on Sunday for a total of about $390,500, bringing the day's aggregate to approximately $8,809,680. That was still down 11 percent from last year's daily gross including private sales.

The auction was to continue in Deauville, France, through Aug. 17.