Meydan to hold sale of pedigreed racehorses

Fancy shelling out something between $60 and $70 million to buy a retired racehorse!

Well, that was the price Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus fetched in the year 2000 topping the record price of $40 million paid for a horse called Shareef Dancer in 1983.

However, at the other end of the spectrum, racehorses begin their career as yearlings, where they can be sold for a fee of more than $10million. In fact, Seattle Dancer is believed to be the most expensive yearling ever sold at a public auction when it fetched $13.1 million in 1985.

This week it’s the turn of racing enthusiasts in the UAE and the Middle East, in particular, to open their wallets and buy some of the best progeny in the world when the Dubai Racing Club teams up with leading auctioneers Goffs to conduct the Dubai World Cup Breeze-Up Sale at Meydan Racecourse on Wednesday (March 23).

As many as 69 two-year-olds will be auctioned during the one-day sale, thanks to the efforts of Tom Taaffe, who brokered the deal on behalf of Goffs, a Founding Member of the Society of International Thoroughbred Auctioneers (SITA)..