Coolmore break world record in buying colt

Hawk Wing

Source: Racing Post

Forestry colt goes for world record $16 million

by Rachel Pagones


THE seemingly immutable 21-year-old world record price for a thoroughbred sold at auction was blasted into oblivion on Tuesday when agent Demi O’Byrne bid $16 million for a two-year-old colt by Forestry in Florida on Tuesday.
O’Byrne, acting for Coolmore principal John Magnier and partners Michael Tabor and Derek Smith, outlasted his archrival, Sheikh Mohammed’s agent John Ferguson, to secure the speedy bay, who had sizzled a furlong in 9.8sec during a pre-sale workout. It was the fastest time that anysale horse worked over the distance during two public breezes.

Although the auction, the Fasig-Tipton selected sale of two-year-olds in training at Calder racecourse in Miami, had been expected to set off fireworks, no-one on the grounds or indeed in the business had expected to see anything come close to the former record of $13.1m, which the BBA had paid, on behalf of a partnership including Coolmore co-founders Robert Sangster and Vincent O’Brien, for Seattle Dancer at the 1985 Keeneland July Yearling Sale.

The previous high price for a two-year-old sold at auction was $5.2m, paid at the Calder sale last year by Ferguson for a Tale Of The Cat colt, who is still unraced.

Fasig-Tipton CEO and executive vice-president Boyd Browning told reporters: "None of us has ever had the experience of selling a horse for $16m, or anywhere near that, in our lifetime. That was fantastic; that was wonderful; and that was extraordinary.”

Of the colt, O’Byrne said to reporters immediately after the breathtaking acquisition: "He'd better be good. Time will tell. He breezed awfully well, and he's a good-looking horse with a good pedigree."

The colt, whose number, 153, came up about midway through the sale, is by the young Storm Cat stallion Forestry, who sired two Grade 1 winners last year, Forest Danger and Diplomat Lady. Forestry stands at Taylor Made farm in Kentucky for a fee of $100,000. His son’s $16m price tag is more than five times his total progeny earnings for last year. However, the colt’s potential value as a stallion could far exceed his racetrack earnings potential; Fusaichi Pegasus, a $4m yearling, was syndicated to stud at Coolmore for a price reported between $60m-$70m.

The sale-topper’s dam is the Unbridled mare Magical Masquerade, a half-sister to Magicalmysterycat, who won two Grade 2 races as a two-year-old. His second dam is Nannerl, a winner of four Graded stakes races.

For Coolmore, the purchase represented a needed triumph in the game of auction acquisitions; last year the team all too often found itself on the losing end of a duel with Sheikh Mohammed’s camp, most notably when the latter outbid Magnier and co. for the $9.7m sale-topper at last year’s Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

The sale also represented the world’s greatestpinhooking score: the Ocala, Florida-based pinhooking team of Randy Hartley and Dean DeRenzo had paid $425,000 for him at last year’s Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July Select Yearling Sale, where he was offered by Taylor Made Sales Agency on behalf of his breeder, Satish Sanan's Padua Stables.

"It's exhilarating," De Renzo told the Blood-Horse. "I don't have to sell another horse in my life. But I'll stay in the game because I love it. We'll probably reinvest the money in horses."

masterK

That's incredible, imagine paying $16 million for a horse before it has ever raced. It better be good.

fade2black

So we won't be seeing it at Wolverhampton on a saturday night then...

Hawk Wing

it should be some match up between himself and that colt Godolpin got for 9.7million last year, they will both be three next year

masterK

There is a good chance that at least one of them will never see a racecourse.