LILY’S Candle was not present at the Arqana Arc Sale on Saturday night when she was sold for €390,000 to Martin Schwartz, acting through Oceanic Bloodstock. Catalogued as Lot 4, the two-year-old listed winning daughter of Style Vendome (Anabaa) was rewarding in no small measure the €15,000 she cost at the same company’s October Yearling Sale a year earlier.

She quickly rewarded Schwartz also when on Sunday she won the opening Group 1 Qatar Prix Marcel Boussac in one of the best finishes of the day. In the process she netted more than £200,000 in prize money. She is from the second crop of the Group 1 French 2000 Guineas winner Style Vendome and is in fact his first blacktype winner.

One of six winners from the Dolphin Street (Bluebird) mare Golden Lily who was placed many times in France, Lily’s Candle is the best of her dam’s runners. What a boost Sunday’s victory is for the winner’s American Post (Bering) half-sister who will sell in a couple of weeks at the Arqana October Yearling Sale.

Miller’s Lily, the grandam of Lily’s Candle, was a dual winner and dam of seven winners. She is grandam of Lys Gracieux (Heart’s Cry) who was runner-up a number of times in Group 1 races in Japan, notably the Oko Sho (1000 Guineas). This is also the immediate family of the Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud winner Robin Of Navan (American Post).

There was another close finish to the second Group 1 juvenile race on the Arc day card, the Qatar Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere. It went the way of the Godolphin home-bred Royal Marine, a son of Raven’s Pass (Elusive Quality). The Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner was, a little surprisingly, siring his first Group 1 winner with Royal Marine.

Royal Marine is out of the Singspiel (In The Wings) mare Inner Secret and she is also dam of the stakes-winning filly Crystal River (Dubawi) and the group-placed colt Secret Ambition (Exceed And Excel). Royal Marine’s second dam is Mysterial (Alleged) who has produced Group 1 winners Dubai Destination (Kingmambo) and Librettist (Danzig), in addition to Group 2 winner Secret Number who is also a son of Raven’s Pass.

Mysterial is a half-sister to Japanese champion sprinter Hishi Akebono (Woodman) and the Group 1 July Cup and Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp winner Agnes World (Danzig), and is from the immediate family of Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile hero Tourist (Tiznow).

The Kildangan Stud-based Raven’s Pass is also sire this year of Group 2-winning sprinter Raven’s Lady, multiple Japanese group winner and Group 1-placed colt Tower Of London, plus Nisreen who last week won the Listed Prix Dahlia.