St Mark’s Basilica Colt Fetches Six Figures At Arqana

A colt from the first crop of St Mark’s Basilica proved one of the highlights of Sunday’s foal offerings at the Arqana Breeding Stock Sale.

Marc-Antoine Berghracht secured the bay with a bid of €110,000 and later revealed his purchase had been made in tandem with the father and son team of Tom and Ronan Whelan. Ronan, who is best known for his exploits in the saddle, later said, “We fell in love with the colt. We can't wait to bring him back to Ireland. St Mark's Basilica is a promising stallion and he's from a great family.”

Bergracht added, “I haven’t seen as many foals by St Mark’s Basilica as I would have liked to, but I’ve heard very good things about them and we really liked this colt. He should be commercial and he had a good vet.”

St Mark’s Basilica’s first foals were well-received at Tattersalls the previous week, where a filly out of top racemare Talent topped the Foal Sale at 575,000gns. Jill Lamb purchased the prized filly on behalf of Newsells Park Stud and the agent was back in action on Saturday when securing a mare in foal to the world champion three-year-old for €360,000.

Offered by Wertheimer & Frere, the young mare is an example of the quality book covered by St Mark’s Basilica in his second season. She is a winning daughter of Group 1 heroine Galikova (Galileo), herself a half-sister to the great Goldikova.

Earlier in the session, Gestut Ammerland sold another well-bred mare in foal to St Mark’s Basilica for €180,000. Repole Stable signed for the black-type performer, who counts Group 1 heroine Baltic Baroness among her siblings.