"KINGDOM FOR A HORSE."

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 141, 16 June 1926, Page 7

"KINGDOM FOR A HORSE."

£100,000 OFFER. AGA KHAN WANTS SOLARIO LOXDOX, June 6. "It is certainly true," said the Aga Khan in reply to an inquiry as to whether he had offered a record sum for the four-year-old horse Solario. '"I want Solario for Ehe stud," h» added. "I have forty good mares, and badly need a first-class stallion." These mares are at the Aga Khan's stud in Ireland. They include the famous Munitaz Mahal, Teresina, Taja Mahal, and a number of others by The Tetrarch. There is little doubt that the oSer is £100,000. Sir John Rutherford, owner of the horse, previously refused an offer of £70,000, and Sir John says now that he intends to keep Solario, whom ha bought as a yearling for £3500 guineas, outbidding the Aga Khan for him. Solario last season won the St. Leger, the Princess of Wales Stakes, and the Ascot Derby Stakes, while he captured the Coronation Cup at Epsom. The racing correspondent of "The Times" recently described Solario ac ".the greatest horse now in training, and one of the greatest of all time. He should make an ideal sire, comparable to the great sires of the past." Solario is by Gainsborough, son of I Bayardo, and winner of the Derby, St. j Leger and Two Thousand Guineas, from I Sun Worship by Sundridge (son of lAmphion), from Doctrine by Ayrshire (son of Hampton), from Axiom by Peter. If ■ the offer of the Aga Khan of f 100,000 for Solario be accepted, it will be easily a record price for a thoroughbred. "Mr. J. B. Joel gave £40,000 for Prince Palatine. M. le Blanc purchased Flying Fox for 37,500 guineas. Sir William Bass gave £31,500 for Cyllene and Diamond Jubilee was sold at that figure to an Argentine breeder. Papyrus was sold after his disastrous American trip for £35,000. He would probably have been worth at least £50.000 if he had never crossed the Atlantic. Larger than any of the foregoing was the price piid by Senor S. J. Unzue, of the Argentine, when he purchased the English horse Tracery from Mr. August Belmont (U.S.A.), for £53 : 000.