King Kamehameha filly brings top price at Tuesday session of JRHA Select Sale

King Kamehameha filly brings top price at Tuesday session

of JRHA Select Sale

A filly from the first crop of Japanese champion King Kamehameha (Kingmambo)

attracted bid of $5,217,391 (¥600,000,000)

to top Tuesday's first foal session of the Japan Racing Horse Association's

Select Sale at Northern Horse Park on Hokkaido. The filly is out of Japanese

champion To the Victory (Sunday Silence), who was second behind Captain Steve in

the 2001 Dubai World Cup (UAE-G1).

Tokyo-based Nobutaka Tada signed the ticket for the record foal on behalf of

a group of unnamed Japanese buyers.

"My clients asked me to find a horse who can win the Arc, and we have all

agreed this was the one to get," Tada said. "But now we have an earlier target,

the Prix Diane. She is beautiful, she has everything and we fell in love with

her. I am not surprised with the price, because we understand she is worth that

amount of money."

Northern Farm consigned the bay. Riki Takahashi, representing Darley Japan,

was the underbidder.

During his stellar racing career, King Kamehameha won the Tokyo Yushun

(Japanese Derby [Jpn-G1]) and NHK Mile Cup. He was named Japan's top

three-year-old of 2004.

Takahashi had better luck earlier in the session when acquiring a colt by

French Deputy for $2,608,695 (¥300,000,000).

The gray foal, out of Blue Avenue (Classic Go Go), is a full brother to Japanese

champion Kurofune and to American multiple graded stakes winner Bella Bellucci.

"This is the one we thought we had to acquire," Takahashi said of his

purchase on behalf of Darley. "As we are looking for horses capable of winning

the Dubai World Cup, this was a lot we could not miss."

After the first of two foal sessions of the auction, the average price was up

23.5 percent from a year ago, while the median fell 5.1 percent. The final

session begins Wednesday.