ARQANA executives will have been pleased with the outcome of their annual breeze up sale on Saturday. In a year when catalogue sizes have grown appreciably, but demand has not matched those increases, the French sales company returned their best ever turnover, while the median and average figures were back just 3% and 5% respectively.

Boosting trade at the upper end of the market were strong drafts from Willie Browne’s Mocklershill and Brendan Holland’s Grove Stud, while the presence of six members of the final crop of Scat Daddy in the catalogue helped to push the turnover not far short of €15 million.