Sheikh spends $20.3 million at Keeneland

Press, 24 July 1986, Page 36

Sheikh spends $20.3 million at Keeneland

NZPA-Reuter Lexington, Kentucky

Arab and European buyers dominated the two-day Keeneland Selected Yearling Sale which ended yesterday but a drop in prices for top colts drove total sales down 25 per cent from 1985 to 5U5104.5 million. Sheikh Mohommed al Maktoum of Dubai’s Darley Stud Management was the most prominent buyer, making successful bids of $20.3 million for 29 lots.

His brother, Maktoum al Maktoum — the owner of Dubai’s Gainsborough Stud, was in second place with winning bids for 15 horses totalling $11.5 million. The 256 colts and fillies sold during the two days of the most prestigious

horse auction cost an average $408,160, down about one-fourth from the $537,384 average last year.

The over-all gross last year was $138.6 million.

“We didn’t have the real spectacular price this year like we did last time,” a Keeneland race course spokesman said. “Last year we had a 13-million-dollar horse and an eight-million-dollar horse.”

The highest price during the auction this year was the $3.6 million paid on Tuesday by Mohommed Maktoum’s Darley Stud for a Northern Dancer colt.

Yesterday’s leading price of $1.85 million was paid by a Lexington businessman, W. T. Young, for a Nijinsky II colt out of Christmas Bonus.