Enchante

I'm truly saled out now. John and Terre McNamara have a regular holiday with us for week two of the December Sale - although it's not really a holiday for them as they have to stay on the ball, which they did this year as usual by buying three fillies - and Emma and I did a similar thing this weekend by taking a trip to the Deauville December Sale, making it a true holiday as we weren't involved in either buying or selling. The only problem was that it fell short of being the perfect holiday in two rather important areas: length and weather. I'll just say it could have been longer and could have been drier: we got home the day after we left, and the hours during which it rained heavily easily outnumbered those in which it didn't. But the weather was only a minor blemish, because it was great to be away, and great to be in a lovely place. It was my first visit to Normandy - Largesse ran third to Kayf Tara and Invermark in the Prix Kergorlay in 1999, but circumstances dictated that I went to Leicester that day rather than Deauville - and, even though I'd been told that it's lovely, I was unprepared for just how lovely it is (even in the rain) (and wind) (and cold). The town is magnificent; during a break in the storm, we took a walk down to the sea-front where I went off into one of my Walter Mitty things, imagining myself walking in the footsteps of my heroes Jimmy Winkfield and Rae Johnstone (although in my imagination they'd have walked there in sunshine), and walking through the streets one sees that the average house in Deauville would be the nicest in most towns in the UK, or anywhere. And the countryside, with every homestead or farm yard a peculiarly Norman work of art, is wonderful, even if we weren't able to admire the lovely house in which we stayed (that of Alix Choppin's family) because it was dark when we arrived there and still dark when we left the following morning a few hours later.

It is normal for people involved predominantly in flat racing to take a holiday in the latter stages of the year, and initially - following part one of our holiday, when we enjoyed an overnight stay in Paris for Arc weekend - we had discussed making the main part of our vacation a trip to France for a few days, going to Paris on the train and then spending part of the trip as a jaunt down to Deauville, again by train. Unfortunately it didn't quite work out like that, because the holiday ended up considerably shorter than initially envisaged, so we drove to Deauville on Saturday, arriving early afternoon, and left about 27 hours later to drive home. But those 27 hours really were quite special. The other way in which the trip deviated from its plans was that the idea was that it would include some research involved in the decision about which stallion Minnie's Mystery would visit in 2008. I had been continually struck by how much cheaper the good French stallions are than their UK counterparts, and I'd more or less got my short list down to Gold Away (€3,500) and Kahyasi (€6,000). Common sense dictated that one uses the older stallion first, but I'd got it into my head that Gold Away's price is going to rise steeply for future seasons, so he had become top of my list. So the idea was that we'd go to see him, and then almost certainly book the mare in. However, a few days before our visit we discovered that I wasn't alone in my theory or preference, and the horse's book was about to become full, so I booked the mare in to him unseen, taking the last nomination (of 100, I think), in the middle of last week.

So on Sunday Alix Choppin took us out to Haras de Quesnay to see not Minnie's Mystery's possible consort, but her actual consort (fingers crossed). I'm so pleased, because he is a tremendous stallion, and I was really excited about seeing him. It was a very special jaunt - memorable not just for Alix's ever-alarming driving, made even more worrying in this case because there were five of us (Emma, Nancy Sexton and Tim Breadmore - who in France is generally known as 'Painplus' - being the others) crammed into the dodgem car as she shot around the rain-slicked bitumen lanes of Normandy (and showed us some nifty French parking - see above). In addition to Gold Away, who isn't a great specimen (but because I'd been told to expect the worst I was pleasantly surprised), we saw all the others who are there (Anabaa, who is currently at Widden and is due to return on January 2nd, being the only absentee). First up was Panis, and then after we had viewed Gold Away there came the real surprise package: Iron Mask. Some of you may be aware that Iron Mask had acquired joke status in my mind: I'd become familiar with his perceived lack of capability through following the exploits of the brothers Dumas, who aren't our friends Joff and David, but who are two extremely poor gallopers named Dumas and Monsieur Dumas. Anyway, their fabled lack of achievement (and that of numerous of their paternal half-siblings) had convinced me that their dad should be on my list of stallions to avoid, but I'm now going to eat a large slice of humble pie: he's a lovely horse, and I was wrong about him. I almost feel that I should send Minnie to him instead of Gold Away to apologise to him; but I'm not going to, especially as his fee is, inexplicably, higher. Then we saw Kentucky Dynamite, a nice horse who has just come out of Andre Fabre's stable, and Numerous, a very well-bred horse who has sired many Grade One winners in America (north and south) and who has just arrived at Quesnay (the most beautiful stud you could imagine, complete with magnificent pedigree French cattle) sun-bleached from a stint in Argentina.

These five horses we saw by the stables, and then we headed (farther) out into the rain to see the two distinguished old gentlemen enjoying their daily relaxation routine in their paddocks: the multiple champion sire Highest Honor (pictured, sire of Minnie's Mystery) and Bering, runner-up to Dancing Brave in one of the best Arcs ever, and very possibly the permanent holder (bearing in mind that there are no longer any Group One races run there at that distance) of the 2400m record at Chantilly, which he set in the 1986 Prix du Jockey-Club. Both look fantastic, particularly Highest Honor, as they approach their 25th birthday. So that was a truly special little excursion, and all too quickly we had to cram ourselves back into the car (Tim at one point looking as if he was caught in a mouse trap) to head back into town.

Although we were at the sales in a purely disinterested capactiy, there was still plenty of interest to be had from nosing around, and one of my favourite memories of the visit was seeing 'grey's inn' in the little courtyard which housed the Aga Khan's offerings. Having visited one truly special white horse (Highest Honor), it was great to admire some others, and there was a line of boxes which seemed to house only greys. The most special area was that which had two adjacent boxes housing two celebrities: Diamonaka, a 17-year-old winning Akarad mare whose numerous distinguished relatives include her son Diamond Green (runner-up in the Poule d'Essai des Poulains, St. James's Palace Stakes and Prix du Moulin), and Dalataya, a 6-year-old Sadler's Wells half-sister to Daylami and Dalakhani. These two white mares were in foal to High Chaparral and Cape Cross respectively and, although they weren't due to be sold until after we had to leave, it was only right to visit them to pay homage.

Tim bought perhaps the bargain of the sale, an unraced (and possibly unraceable) two-year-old half-sister to this year's Poule d'Essai des Pouliches place-getter Rahiyah for €3,000, and he was part of a large contingent of Aussies there, which included Rick Wylie (although an NZ resident, he bears the AUS suffix) and Alan Osburg (former co-owner of Exceed And Excel), two men with whom we had dined chez Ruth Harrison last Thursday. Tim wasn't actually staying with the others: Frank Pollio (formerly of Winning Post, now of Arrowfield and Arqana) had booked him into a supposedly nice hotel where a lot of the visitors were staying but Tim decided to look elsewhere within seconds of walking through the front door. Although Alix declared about this hotel that "everyone wants to stay there", she obviously hadn't included Tim in her poll, because he apparently made the snap verdict that "It's like a toilet block" and promptly made other arrangements. I'm still chuckling over that, one of the many reasons why our outing, although too short and too wet, was a very good one. I can't wait to go back (and Minnie foaling in the spring might just be the excuse I need ... ).