Originally Posted by papillon
ESPN and the NY Times are not industry publications. Their source will never be revealed. Using them was certainly to ensure that the widest possible audience was reached and to keep the source concealed.
Coolmore has not commented at all, even though WindStar did very quickly, denying the sale, but not the talks. My bet is Coolmore is the source. Why they would want that guarded is odd, as is why they would want that shared with a very broad non-industry base.
Why Coolmore would want a horse it had passed on due to a vet check, who is starting to display the notoriously weak Ghostzapper feet, when it has a $3M Mendelssohn, Carivagio, No Nay Never, and the $1M Scat Daddy baby they just bought, not to mention the only living TC champ, is odder.
Why WindStar would condsider selling a potential golden goose that they could make $40 million on themselves just on the first two years alone is oddest.
If there was a sale, WindStar publically denoucing it could legally be viewed as renunciation/breach. When $60M is on the line, there are some serious contractual clauses involved and lawyers who bill at $1200/hr or more. My bet is that there was no sale.
The most obvious repercussion of the rumor is that WindStar is now percieved as wanting to ditch a horse on the eve of a TC, suggesting that there is something wrong with it. This is on top of a lameness incident, a less than inspiring Preakness, and murky reasons for not racing at two.
It comes out right before the horse becomes a threat to AP at stud, and right after Baffert began running his mouth about how Justify is better in key stud attributes, soundness, sturdiness, and ability to recover, along with performance attributes, all of which are patently false. Plus he's got that 97 and 98 and 2:04 and one of the slowest SA Derbies ever and his derby was a wash because 2/3 of the field were wiped out and he's been winning on slop...and what if the calculated track variant for the SA derby was off, so maybe the 97 wasn't a regression? At $200K a pop these doubts niggle.
Whether Justify wins or not, a seed has been planted in potential investors's minds. Baby APs will be hitting the track soon, and have already been show stoppers. Justify won't be a bargain in comparison to AP and will be an unknown quantity with caveats.
Then there is Mendelssohn. He's better bred, better conformed, more expensive, more versatile, and they already shelled out $3M for him. They've certainly studied the stills from the KY Derby by now, and rightly or wrongly, probably didn't like what they saw regarding Noble Indy's jock and Audible's lane shift.
Audible, as expected, is not going to run in the Belmont, but unexpectedly, Noble Indy is. Noble Indy who accompanied Mendelssohn all the way around the track, but with a dream trip in comparison. Noble Indy who really could be a quality rabbit. Whereas running Audible made no sense, running Noble Indy is crazy, not the least of which, because if he crushes it, even if he loses, Mendelssohn is redeemed.
For Windstar to sell Noble Indy wouldn't be odd. For Coolmore to buy Noble Indy wouldn't be that odd (though a little odd). For Pletcher to run a rabbit for Vino Rosso wouldn't be odd.
There are no coincidences in money. The more money at stake, the more manipulation and machinations involved. The war for the replacement Scat Daddy began 3 years ago. The derby turned that into a war between Coolmore and WindStar. Coolmore is notorius in its ability to hold a grudge, just ask Godolfin. They are playing the long game.
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