Sire of War Emblem Is Sold for $7 Million

Less than a year after a Maryland couple bought Our Emblem for a reported $200,000, the sire of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner was sold Wednesday for an amount believed to be in excess of $7 million.

After War Emblem won the Derby on May 4, Audrey and Allen Murray, who own Murmur Farm in Darlington, Md., said they received a written offer of $4.5 million for Our Emblem. In an interview last week, the Murrays said that while they plan to sell Our Emblem, they probably would wait until after War Emblem ran in the Belmont Stakes on June 8.

A win by War Emblem in the Belmont would make him the first Triple Crown winner in 24 years and greatly enhance Our Emblem’s value as a stallion.

“It would take a very high offer for us to sell before the Belmont,” Allen Murray said a week ago.

The Murrays also had an oral offer of $6.5 million on the table, but apparently that was topped this week by WinStar Farm, whose president, Doug Cauthen, announced the purchase Wednesday.

Cauthen is a brother of Steve Cauthen, who rode Affirmed, the last Triple Crown champion, in 1978. Doug Cauthen also said that starting in February, Our Emblem will stand at Taylor Made Farm in Nicholasville, Ky.

The stallion is finishing up his only stud season at Murmur, where he will have been bred to 95 mares by July.

Our Emblem’s stud fee started at $4,000 at Murmur and was raised to $7,500 a mating after War Emblem won the Derby.

Our Emblem’s fee could be expected to be in the six-figure range next year, regardless of what War Emblem does in the Belmont. Our Emblem, an 11-year-old, is a regally bred son of Mr. Prospector and Personal Ensign.

But in four years on the track for trainer Shug McCaughey, he won only five races, none of them stakes. Then in five years at stud at Claiborne Farm in Kentucky, he sired only one minor stakes winner. Claiborne sold him to the Murrays last November.

At that time, War Emblem, the result of a mating between Our Emblem and Sweetest Lady, a Lord At War mare, had broken his maiden at first asking, but then finished seventh at a grass stake at Arlington Park.