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Micro- owners waiting to see Authentic race in Breeders’ Cup
Kentucky Derby winner Authentic ran the fastest race of his life on Oct. 3 in the Preakness Stakes, but the colt finished second to a filly named Swiss Skydiver.
Authentic has more owners than any horse in the history of racing — including 5,314 microowners who each paid $ 206 per share through MyRacehorse. com, which owns 12.5% of the horse.
Micro- owners are still waiting to learn their payouts from the two Triple Crown races. Authentic won its owners $ 200,000 in the Preakness and $ 1.8 million in the Kentucky Derby.
“We are going to pay dividends when Authentic starts breeding,” said Michael Behrens, the California man who came up with the concept for MyRacehorse, which last year sold more than 70,000 shares in 47 horses.
“Breeding is where the real money is,” he said in a text message interview this week. “Authentic improved his stud fee by 50- 100% with those two performances. “Now we are on to the big one.”
The Breeders’ Cup on Nov. 7 in Lexington, Ky., is billed as North America’s richest race. The purse to be split among the top four finishers is $ 6 million, six times higher than this year’s Preakness
purse.
Authentic is not the favorite in the Breeders’ Cup, but oddsmakers currently have him at respectable 8- 1 odds.
After Authentic won the Kentucky Derby, MyRacehorse. com sold out of shares, leaving thousands of people on the waiting list to buy a micro- share of a thoroughbred. Mr. Behrens said he and his staff will be buying more horses. The site shows photos of three yearlings who will be for sale soon.
Hero dog awards
Who will be crowned the 2020 American Hero Dog? Find out at 8 p. m. Monday on Hallmark Channel. The two- hour broadcast will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the American Humane Hero Dog Awards.
Dog lovers cast more than 1 million online votes to narrow the field from 408 nominees to seven finalists. The finalists and their categories are:
• Labrador retriever Dolly Pawton, 4, service dog. She is a cardiac alert dog in Naples, Maine. She lets her partner know when her heart rate rises to a dangerous level.
• Labrador retriever/ mix Remington, 9, search and rescue. He traveled the country to disaster sites, including Hurricane Harvey. In 2019 Remington was diagnosed with cancer, and Project K9 Hero Donors raised money
for the expensive surgery that saved his life. He’s now retired in Montgomery, Texas.
• Labrador retriever Blue II, 11, military dog. She served in Afghanistan and other deployments from 2011 to 2018, saving Navy sailors and Marines by detecting improvised explosive devices. She retired to Lawrenceville, Ga., in 2018.
• Labrador/ golden retriever/ mix Aura, 7, hearing dog. She lives in Brunswick, Maine, where she serves a soldier who lost his hearing in a rocket attack in Afghanistan.
• German shepherd/ Belgian Malinois/ mix Cody, 8, law enforcement. Another dog who detects explosives, she has worked in Iraq and
lives in Newport News, Va., where she safeguards sports events and does bomb searches for local agencies.
• Chihuahua MacKenzie, 6, shelter dog. Born in a shelter with a cleft palate, she now works in a shelter in Hilton, N. Y., with puppies and other baby animals with serious medical problems.
• Poodle mix Olive, 7, therapy dog. Rescued from the streets of Los Angeles, she was trained as a therapy dog and has accompanied more than 300 children to court hearings in Jefferson City, Mo.