Word: arazi
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...Arazi can repeat his latest performance in this Saturday's Kentucky Derby, where he is the favorite in a field of such impressive challengers as A.P. Indy and Pistols and Roses, the young stallion could earn the right to graze in horse racing's Elysian Fields alongside the greatest track legends of all time. Already the winner of six major-stakes races in France worth $700,000, as well as the $1 million Breeder's Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs last year, Arazi is fast winning a reputation as the second coming of Secretariat. Says Joe Hirsch, a columnist with...
Many great horses have been bigger and stronger. Arazi is small -- he stands 5 ft. 2 in. at the shoulder -- and is vulnerable in the knees. Five months ago he underwent arthroscopic surgery to remove bone spurs in both his front legs, though he is now fully recovered. Yet he retains one outstanding quality: enormous acceleration. Explains Arazi's French trainer Francois Boutin: "It is not his speed that counts as much as his courage to overtake other horses at the right moment and win races." With each appearance in the winner's circle, speculation has also grown over...
...Arazi's other owner, United Arab Emirates Defense Minister Sheik Mohammed bin-Rashid al-Maktoum, whose family possesses more racehorses than anyone else in the world, has other ideas. He would like Arazi to shoot for an unprecedented transatlantic double by running in the Kentucky Derby and then going on in June to the $1 million Epsom Derby, Britain's premier flat race. Contesting Epsom as well as the full Triple Crown is impossible because the events are spaced too closely on the calendar...
...done it," says Lord White of Hull, the chairman of Hanson Industries, whose Ever Ready subsidiary sponsors Epsom. "Paulson, on the other hand, has a very pragmatic attitude toward the financial rewards represented by the Triple Crown. You've got two very strong-willed men; the question of where Arazi runs may, in the end, come down to money...
Sheik Mohammed purchased his 50% share in Arazi from Paulson six months ago. Sheik Mohammed had tried several times before to buy the horse through intermediaries, but Paulson refused. Finally, during last year's $1.5 million Arc de Triomphe at Paris's Longchamps racecourse, the Arab prince pressed Paulson face to face, asking him to name his price. Trying to come up with a figure that would be too high to be taken seriously, Paulson proposed $9 million for half the horse; to his surprise, Sheik Mohammed immediately closed the deal on a handshake...