Thoroughbred Corp. Plans for U.S. Pullout

The Thoroughbred Corp., winner of four Triple Crown races with Point Given and War Emblem, will complete its expected pullout from racing in the U.S. with the sale of 58 horses on March 2.

Richard Mulhall, racing manager for the Saudi Arabian-owned Thoroughbred Corp., said Tuesday that the horses would be auctioned as part of the Barretts 2-year-old-in-training sale at Fairplex Park in Pomona. One of the horses in the racing-stock dispersal, the stakes-winning Atlantic Ocean, is scheduled to run in the La Brea Stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday.

Since the death, at 43, of Prince Ahmed bin Salman in July 2002, about 2 1/2 months after he’d won the Kentucky Derby with War Emblem, surviving relatives have been reluctant to continue the operation on the same massive scale. The prince owned hundreds of horses that he raced and bred. Thoroughbred Corp. scored its most recent major victory when Johar finished in a dead heat for first place with High Chaparral in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita in October.

At Keeneland in November, Thoroughbred Corp. sold 56 of its horses for $32.4 million, the fourth-highest dispersal on record.

Salman started his breeding and racing operation in 1994, and immediately plunged into the business of trying to win the sport’s biggest prizes. Point Given won the Preakness and Belmont Stakes in 2001 and was voted horse of the year. In 2002, Salman bought 90% of War Emblem for $900,000 and just weeks later, the colt won the Derby and the Preakness. After Salman’s death, War Emblem was sold to Japanese breeders for $17 million.

Thoroughbred Corp. won its first two Breeders’ Cup races in the Distaff, with Jewel Princess in 1996 and Spain in 2000. The stable has won more than 300 races and purses in excess of $30 million. As a broodmare, Spain was sold in November for $5.3 million.