The 2002 Horse of the Year Azeri was up for sale on Monday at Keeneland’s January all-ages sale, but the final bid of $4.4 million was not enough for Michael Paulson to part with her. She is in foal with 2004 Horse of the Year Ghostzapper, and tests have shown she is carrying a filly. Paulson would not sell her at $4.4 million, but stated that the bids were very close to the magic number that would have completed the deal.
“We’re going to talk to a few people and see if we can do a deal here shortly,” he said. “But, if not, we’ll take her home and get the Ghostzapper foal. Unfortunately, we’ve been the victims twice now of the global financial market meltdown. My father said, ‘When you’ve got the quality, you want to keep it,’ and obviously she’s still the queen. Anybody who saw her come to the ring, she was on her toes. She thought she was going to race. In a good market, she’d have brought double that,” he added.
Earlier in the year Paulson bought back Azeri’s A.P. Indy colt, Vallenzeri, for a record buy-back price of $7.7 million at the Keeneland September yearling sale. That may have dampened buyers’ confidence that he was serious about selling Azeri, but Paulson said:
“I can’t speak for other people, but, obviously, if they were in my shoes and had a living female Horse of the Year, the only three-time Eclipse Award-winning older mare champion ever, they would be in the same position I was in. I adjusted our reserve to reflect the market, but she has a value, and I was going to let her go for extremely good value, but unfortunately we’re victims of the global financial market.”
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