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Ecurie des Monceaux
Consistently successful
Ecurie des Monceaux has been top consignor at Arqana August since 2015 producing fine horses with the excellent results creating over a decade of leading-class sale returns.
This year the farm is enjoying another fabulous season on the track, headed up by the three-time Group 1 winner Paddington.
Jocelyn de Moubray meets stud manager Henri Bozo, who is looking forward to the 2023 yearling sales season
SINCE 2010 ECURIE DES MONCEAUX has raised and sold 14 Group 1 winners and Paddington is the stud’s fourth Classic winner following the Jockey-Club winner Sottsass, the Irish Oaks winner Chicquita and the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches winner Mangoustine.
“Classic races are very hard to win,” says an understated Henri Bozo, manager of Ecurie des Monceaux. “We have also been second three times in the Diane with Chicquita, Sistercharlie and Philomene.”
“Classic races are very hard to win,” says an understated Henri Bozo, manager of Ecurie des Monceaux. “We have also been second three times in the Diane with Chicquita, Sistercharlie and Philomene.”
Few if any of Europe’s commercial breeders can match this level of success at the highest level on the track, but also in the sale ring.
Every year since 2015, Monceaux has sold yearlings for at least €9 million at the
Arqana August Sale with its best year coming in 2022 when the 32 yearlings sold by the farm made a total of €12,680,000 or 25 per cent of the sale’s aggregate.
In terms of percentage of the aggregate the farm’s best year was in 2015 when the €12,100,000 turnover was 28 per cent of the sale’s total.
This year Monceaux’s Arqana draft looks to be as strong as ever – 40 entered in the August Sale include eight by Wootton Bassett, seven by Siyouni and five by Dubawi and, as a rough estimate, the group are carrying covering fees of close to a total of €5 million.
The success and the investment are a source of joy and satisfaction for Bozo, as well as sometimes a cause of anxiety and stress.
“Breeding thoroughbreds is difficult,”
he explains. “There are always going to be things which go wrong – they are living creatures. I believe unless you maintain the enthusiasm and desire to win it is probably too difficult a way to live.
“I find winning races as exciting as I ever did and I suppose when it comes to the stress we have, to some degree, I have become used to dealing with it.
“After all, the breeder who has borrowed €20,000 for a nomination fee has the same type of stress as us when their yearling is in the sales ring.”
“I think,” he continues, “every breeder has their own ways and their particular breeding philosophy, or at least they ought to.
“When we go to the sales every stud has their own type of horse which is different from the other farms. A ‘Monceaux’ horse is a little immature, not too heavy, but very fit and ready to work at the sale.
“Over the years we have changed some small things in our sales preparation but overall the essential has remained the same.
“We do not consign any external yearlings – all of those we present at the sale are raised on the farm. The horses here at Monceaux are outside as much as is possible, they work over the winter and are then prepared for the sales mainly through being walked in-hand, and we make sure that we do not feed too much.”
A HIGH PROPORTION of Monceaux-raised horses have proved able to demonstrate the benefits of this preparation.
Bozo became manager soon after the then run-down and more or less abandoned stud was bought by Lucien Urano in 2003, and it didn’t take long for Ecurie des Monceaux to impose itself as a major commercial breeder.
Ecurie des Monceaux was initially established by the US Strassburger family in 1924 and went through different ownerships, including with the Clore family, the owners of Triptych.
But when Urano bought the place it was more or less a cattle farm, and in a state of disrepair.
The new look Monceaux started to sell expensive yearlings in Deauville in 2009 and became the leading vendor at the Arqana August Sale for the first time in 2012; it has maintained that position ever since.
Urano sold the farm and its bloodstock to an international partnership in 2015; Bozo and the new owners have continued on an upward path enjoying success in the Arqana sales ring and on the best racecourses.
In 2023, Haras des Monceaux is enjoying a most excellent racing season, which is almost, if possible, its best yet.
Paddington, a son of Siyouni bred by Diane Wildenstein’s Dayton Investments, raised at Monceaux and sold at the Arqana October Yearling Sale to the Tabor, Smith, Magnier, Brant & Westerberg partnership, has won the Irish 2,000 Guineas (G1), the St James’s Palace Stakes (G1) and the Coral Eclipse Stakes (G1), and he is, at the time of writing, the highest-rated horse of his generation.
Jean Louis Bouchard’s Feed The Flame, bred by a Monceaux partnership which includes Trevor Harris’s Lordship Stud, raised on the farm and sold at the Arqana August Sale, is among the best of his generation in France. He finished fourth in the Prix du Jockey-Club (G1) on only his third start and won the Grand Prix de Paris (G1) next time out.
The two-year-old Dubawi colt Ancient Wisdom, bred by Monceaux in partnership with LNJ Foxwoods and sold at the Arqana August Sale, is unbeaten in two starts in England for Charlie Appleby and Godolphin. He is entered in the National Stakes (G1).
Monceaux is part-owner of the Prix du Bois Longines (G3) and Group 2 Robert Papin-winning filly Ramatuelle, one of France’s most promising two-year-olds, and is breeder and consignor of the three-time unbeaten and Listed winner Beauvatier. They are just two of the many promising Monceaux graduates running at present.
Paddington was the joint-second top priced yearling at Arqana October.
“He was always a lovely horse with a great walk,” remembers Bozo. “He went to October as his breeder was not sure initially whether to offer him for sale, but I like the Arqana October Sale and it has been better than ever over the last two years as French breeding and its success has gained international recognition.
“This year we shall be selling a full-brother to the Jockey-Club winner and sire Sottsass in October.”
Paddington carries the suffix GB as he was born in Britain while his dam was waiting to be covered – the suffix system is something which irritates Bozo.
“I always tell my Irish and English friends that the suffix system needs to be changed,” he says. “Paddington GB, Bucanero Fuerte GB, Ace Impact IRE and Blue Rose Can IRE were all bred and raised in France – it is just so confusing that they carry the suffix of the country where they were born.”
Under its new ownership Monceaux has expanded and developed a large number of partnerships, for horses in training, for mares and for the yearlings it offers for sale.
There are around 80 mares based on the farm’s 840 acres, some of these belong to clients such as Lady Bamford, China Horse Club or Diane Wildenstein, and the majority to separate partnerships formed among the farm’s international partners.
“We have bought a lot of land around the original farm,” Bozo explains, “and are now almost double the size of the farm we started with. I am a believer in the importance of using fresh land and of having enough to be able to rest it correctly. We bought mainly cattle farms around us and the original stud farm had carried few mares or horses at all on it in the years before Monceaux was reborn.”
Monceaux’s yearlings in the August Sale belong to many different partnerships.
The five by Dubawi, for instance, belong to five different groupings of French and international partners with Monceaux itself owning between 70 per cent and 30 per cent in each of them.
“We have built up different partnerships, which has helped establish an international network of contacts,” Bozo adds. “And we have, with the help of my brother Ghislain Bozo, David Redvers and Arthur Hoyeau, have put together some syndicates to invest in yearling fillies.
“The aim is to participate in the French racing world and make new contacts there and build the quality of our future broodmare band.”
MONCEAUX is a partner in about 15 fillies in training, mainly two-year-olds, who are with ten different trainers all over France.
For the time being the best of these is the two-year-old Justify filly Ramatuelle, who was a brilliant winner of the Group 2 Prix Robert Papin carrying the colours of Tony Parker’s Infinity Nine Horses for trainer Christopher Head.
Monceaux owns 20 per cent of Ramatuelle, who was bought at last year’s August Sale for €100,000 by Hoyeau.
“I think buying yearling fillies gives us the best chance of acquiring mares with the level of performance and the physical conformation we are looking for,” Bozo says.
“When you buy at the breeding stock sales you are making your choice from only a small selection of horses and vendors and, of course, the fillies and mares with high-class performances and excellent conformation are very expensive.
“When you buy yearling fillies you have a wide choice and, if it works out, you have a broodmare for the future.
“Perhaps if we have a top filly some of our partners may be tempted to sell, but certainly not me – my idea is always to try to raise the quality of our broodmare band and, more generally, the standard of broodmares in France.
“Look at Ramatuelle she appears to be very good. As she is by Justify out of a Raven’s Pass mare, she is an outcross to many of the top stallions in Europe.”
If Monceaux is a part-owner of some promising two-year-olds it also sold some at last year’s August Sale.
Beauvatier is a son of Lope De Vega trained by Yann Barberot, who bought the colt for €160,000.
He won his first two starts in May, and beat the subsequent Group winner Ramantuelle in the second of his wins in Saint-Cloud. He has since won the Listed Prix Roland de Chambure.
The Godolphin-owned Ancient Wisdom, sold for €2 million, has won both of his first two starts in June.
“Both of their dams were best at 1m4f and so neither were bred to be particularly precocious,” Bozo comments. “We are aiming to breed horses who improve and are at their best as three-year-olds.”
Two other high profile sales from last year were that of Shin Emperor, the full-brother to Jockey-Club winner Sottsass who is in training with Yoshito Yahagi and sold for a sale-topping €2,100,000, and Earhart. She is a Siyouni filly in training with Tim Donworth for LNJ Foxwoods and fetched €1,400,000 bought by Solis/Litt.
“The latest news I have heard is that Mr Yahagi is happy with the colt,” Bozo reports, “and the filly has grown and looks magnificent. We have had a lot of success with Siyouni and I can honestly say that I like all of the yearlings we have by him on the farm.”
One aspect of commercial breeding, which has always been straightforward for Monceaux, is the choice of yearling sales.
All of the farm’s yearlings are presented at either Arqana’s August or October Sale, with the exception of the occasional one kept to race by Monceaux or one of its clients.
Monceaux’s own horses-in-training include Snowpark with Jean-Claude Rouget. She is a three-year-old Dubawi half-sister to Sottsass and Sistercharlie kept as a future broodmare, and is due to return to competition after a setback in the spring.
“I want to be open and straightforward with our yearlings,” Bozo explains. “And we have grown up together with Arqana and began selling yearlings with them at the time the company was making its name.
“I have great admiration for the other sales companies, but if we put one of our Dubawis in a sale in England or Ireland everybody would ask have they put the best one elsewhere?
“Of course, I am not always thrilled to find out which lot numbers we have drawn but, at the end of the day, if you have the horse it will sell whether or not it is the first or last number of the sale.
“I think the buyers have come to see that we sell only yearlings we have raised and prepared ourselves, and we sell them with Arqana, either in August or in October. It is not always possible to sell at the top of the market, but if you wish to keep doing so you have to be open and credible, and you have to sell good horses.
“I spend a lot of time looking at the results and statistics of the horses we raise as that is the way our work is judged.”
Bozo’s philosophy of breeding and selling will be put to the test at this year’s sale as Monceaux has three of the first ten lots in the ring, and all five of the farm’s Dubawi yearlings will go through the ring in the first 40 lots of the sale.
For those working on the inside this will be a few hours full of stress, but those of us watching from the sidelines have every reason to be confident it will work out as planned.
Monceaux and Henri Bozo do, after all, have a long record of success at both selling expensive yearlings and raising top horses.
