Pharoah’s owners glad they didn’t let their horse out of the barn
Justin Zayat remembers Aug. 5, 2013 “like it was yesterday.”
Zayat, the racing and stallion manager for his family’s Zayat Stables, was vacationing with his parents and siblings in California, spending the day at Disneyland. Meanwhile, their homebred colt was on offer at the prestigious Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Selected Yearlings sale in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
The Zayats weren’t particularly keen to sell the horse, recalls the younger Zayat, but they put him up for auction as a way to advertise his stallion, Pioneerof The Nile. At the time the Zayats were the majority owners of Pioneerof The Nile, the runner-up in the 2009 Kentucky Derby who was still unproven in the breeding shed.
In order to get breeders interested in their fledgling stud, the Zayats felt they had to showcase his offspring by putting them on the market.
“We are not known to sell horses,” explained Justin Zayat. “We breed to race.”
The Zayats placed a high reserve price on the solid bay colt; they liked him and felt if buyers were interested in him too, they’d have to pay high market value.
The colt looked like a runner; he had good conformation and the presence that horsemen like to see in potential racehorses, but his pedi- gree didn’t stand out for anyone searching for a Kentucky Derby winner or a future stallion.
After just a few minutes in the sales ring, and some interest, the Zayats purchased their own horse for the reserve price of $300,000. On Saturday, that colt, now known as American Pharoah, will try to become the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years, when he runs in the Belmont Stakes.
One of the potential buyers was Randy Gullatt, team manager at Twin Creeks Racing, who said American Pharoah had “nice bone” and was “very classy,” but said that Pioneerof The Nile “was a big question mark.”
“Unfortunately, we pulled up when we should have kept bidding,” said Gullatt.
For a year-old, unraced horse to command top dollar, sellers can’t just rely on their horse’s appearance; their parents play a big role, too. It’s their pedigree that is key in a thoroughbred’s residual value.
Paying over $300,000 would have been considered premium in 2013, Mark Taylor of Taylor Made Sales Agency wrote in an email to the Star. Taylor Made was hired to prepare and consign the colt to the sale.
This is not the first time the Zayats have had the good fortune of putting their horses up for auction but not selling them. Pioneerof The Nile was put through the sales ring as a yearling. Today, thanks to American Pharoah, he is fully booked in the shed and commands $60,000 (U.S.) per breeding.
While the Zayats did hedge their bets by placing a high price on their colt that day, Zayat believes that luck has played a significant role in their fortune.
In 1968, famed horseman Ogden Phipps tempted fate and lost when he won a coin toss, which would decide who would receive the first foal from the mating of Phipps’ stallion Bold Ruler and Meadow Stable’s broodmare Somethingroyal. In 1969, Somethingroyal produced a filly, which would be named The Bride. The following year, the mating produced a colt that would be called Secretariat.
Just days after American Pharoah’s win in the Preakness, the Zayats sold the breeding rights of their most accomplished racehorse to date to international stallion operation Coolmore for an undisclosed amount, but reports say offers were made for “north of $20 million.”
“Sometimes,” Zayat said, “it’s better to be lucky than smart.”