The announcement that everyone expected today, and caused much gnashing of teeth on the blogosphere over the past day, never happened. The multi-million dollar deal for the breeding rights to Big Brown have stalled for the moment.
From The Daily Racing Form:
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t come to terms on a stud deal for Big Brown prior to the Preakness as we had hoped,” said Michael Iavarone, co-president of IEAH Stables. “Legal issues and time constraints proved too much to overcome, and we will revisit all options following the Preakness. Big Brown is training as well as ever, we expect a big effort on Saturday, and are very anxious for the race. We appreciate the great interest shown in our colt.”
After the statement, Iavarone dove into a pile of gold coins, like Scrooge McDuck. (I kid, Iavarone actually seemed like a nice guy when I spoke with him a few times during Derby week about details on how IEAH's hedge fund was going to work.)
While no one knows exactly who the buyer is, they have been referred to as a, "major American-owned stud farm in central Kentucky," which rules out the Irish-based Coolmore and the Sheik's Darley, so my guess is WinStar Farms, who co-own Court Vision with IEAH. Although it could be anyone -- Three Chimneys, Stonestreet...
Still just because a deal wasn't announced today doesn't change much, even if someone can catch Big Brown's rising star, it's not like WinStar the buyer is going to shave a million or two off of the price. The horse will sell for a big ticket in the tens of millions and will have an opening stud fee of at least $100,000 -- which is a lot for fragile hoof gene if you ask me.
The lack of a deal also doesn't change the fact that Iavarone said that there was zero chance the Kentucky Derby winner would race as a 4-year-old. We'll be lucky if we see Big Brown in October... hell, if this horse doesn't win on Saturday you may not ever see him race again.
1 comments:
"if this horse doesn't win on Saturday you may not ever see him race again"
you nailed it
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