Kentucky Derby: The $10 million gamble on a 1000-1 longshot
Every year, millions are spent on horses buyers hope will make it to the Kentucky Derby. Of around 18,000, only 20 end up running for the roses.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Bob Baffert is riding high at the Kentucky Derby once again, and it has nothing to do with the sweet Bentley parked in front of Barn 33 on the backstretch of Churchill Downs where he’s housed six winners of America’s preeminent horse race. It doesn’t necessarily even have to do with Litmus Test or Potente, the two longshots he’ll send to the starting gate Saturday.
Rather, the buzz of the barn is a 2-year old that just arrived at his home base in California from the first crop of champion Flightline. After a jaw-dropping workout at an auction in Florida fewer than two weeks ago, the winning bidder was one of Baffert’s top clients, the American-born Saudi billionaire Amr Zedan. The price?
A remarkable $10. 5 million. The horse, which they immediately named Zedan, now carries high hopes of making the 2027 Kentucky Derby.
In a videotaped interview this week with longtime racing writer Jennis Rees, Baffert explained the process that led to the purchase. “We’ve had sort of a slow year, and that happens,” he told Rees. “But I have an expression: When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.
Continue to the original source for the full article.