Racing is full of risk-takers, not least those who fork out hefty sums to buy yearlings or unraced two-year-olds. Back at the Keene-land Sales in 1983 Sheikh Mohammed paid a record $10.2 million for Snaafi Dancer, a colt by the great Northern Dancer. Snaafi Dancer alas proved so slow that he never made it to the racecourse. Retired to stud, he had fertility problems and only ever sired four foals. In 2006 a frantic bidding war at Fasig-Tipton between two great racing empires — Sheikh Mohammed’s John Ferguson bidding against Coolmore’s John Magnier — saw Coolmore pay a new world record price of $16 million for The Green Monkey. Despite having been foaled in the Chinese year of the green monkey, the expensive animal failed to win any of his three starts before being retired.
Such stories will never stop the serious players: at Goffs Orby sale this month dockets were still being signed for eye-watering sums with Amer Abdulaziz and Phoenix Thoroughbreds, for example, outbidding Coolmore to acquire a Galileo filly for £2 million.
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