Horse at Saratoga Yearling Sale Goes for Whopping $4M Dollars!

Fasig-Tipton, Saratoga Springs

If you think it's risky to bet on horse racing, you should try being an owner!

The kind of money that owners and trainers pour into the sport, pales in comparison to the few bucks we lose while enjoying a day at the Saratoga Race Course.

We're talking big, big money here and it's not unusual for colts to be sold for hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars at Fasig-Tipton, the annual yearling sale in Saratoga Springs.

In fact, this year alone, 10 yearlings were sold for at least $1 million dollars; remember that the next time you're ticked off you lost 12 bucks on an exacta when your horse broke slowly out the gate!

4 Million Dollars!

And on Tuesday night, a sought-after yearling (racing lingo for a 1-year-old horse, or a horse that's not yet 2) was sold for a whopping $4 million dollars, which is the most amount spent on a racehorse at Fasig-Tipton in Saratoga in nearly 25 years.

According to PaulikReport.com, the horse, labeled "Hip 165", is the bloodline to a former Horse of the Year named "Beholder", and he sold for $4 million to a man named Donato Lanni, an agent for Zedan Racing.  According to the report, this colt is the "first of Hall of Fame inductee Beholder's foals to be offered at public auction."

In a report by BloodHorse.com, Amr Zedan from Zedan Racing said, "Spending that kind of money, it's a lot. But from an operational standpoint, from the portfolio we've got, it's a well-hedged, well-calculated venture. It's not like we're shooting from the hip."

"The price reflected the rarity of the offering, matching the third-highest price ever realized at The Saratoga Sale and the most expensive since 2000."  -PaulikReport

Fasig-Tipton Saratoga "By the Numbers" according to PaulikReport:

• 153 yearlings were sold for a sale record $74,780,000, up 11.7 percent from the previous record of $66,955,000 set last year.
• The average of $488,758 eclipsed by 4.4 percent the record set last year of $468,217. The median tied last year's record of $375,000.
• Ten yearlings sold for $1 million or more over the course of the two nights.