Breeders’ Cup Legends: Arazi

Arazi dominates the 1991 Breeders' Cup Juvenile. (Photos by HorsePhotos.com)
The Breeders’ Cup World Championships often features international fields of champions and millionaires, but in the first eight years of the series no European-trained horse had won on the dirt, let alone by a record margin. Until Arazi.
Airplane manufacturing magnate Allen Paulson purchased Arazi as a weanling for $350,000 from the horse’s breeder, Buffalo Bills founder Ralph C. Wilson. When unable to better that price at auction the next summer, Paulson decided to keep the colt, naming him after a navigation checkpoint in Arizona and shipping him to France to train under the tutelage of Francois Boutin.
Arazi debuted in Paris in the spring of his 2-year-old year, finishing second at Chantilly. That start was all it took for the colt to figure out the racing game, and he promptly won in stakes company in his second try. Arazi then reeled off wins in Group 2 and 3 races before capturing the Group 1 Prix Morny Agence Francaise, Prix de la Salamandre and CIGA Grand Criterium by open lengths to head into the 1991 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile with a six-race win streak.
The extraordinary colt had caught the eye of many horsemen worldwide, and Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum paid a reported $9 million for a 50 percent share in Arazi prior to the Breeders’ Cup.
The colt shipped across the pond to Churchill Downs, where he continued to impress in training in the days prior to the race. When the field left the gate, Arazi the French wonder was a 2.10-to-1 favorite.
But bettors and fans had to wonder if their faith was misplaced when the colt dropped to the back of the pack, 12 ¼ lengths behind, with one horse beaten on the first turn. Second-choice Bertrando set the pace well-clear of his challengers, with Agincourt giving chase. But Arazi wasn’t done. The colt began advancing on the backstretch, and as the field rounded the turn for home he was flying toward Bertrando.
Arazi’s turn of foot was spectacular. Announcer Tom Durkin didn’t notice the colt’s sudden move until he had leapt into fifth place, and the excitement was palpable.
“Arazi! Hits his best stride, and there goes the European star … coming with a menacing rush to Bertrando. The stage is set. But Arazi runs right by him!”
Arazi did run right by him, striking the front at the top of the stretch and not looking back. The colt’s victory was so assured that he crossed the finish line geared down nearly to a canter, five lengths in front of a “discouraged” Bertrando, a margin that was a record at the time. Arazi and jockey Patrick Valenzuela had won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in a performance that was best described by Durkin as “absolutely brilliant.”
1991 BREEDERS’ CUP JUVENILE

Video courtesy Breeders’ Cup World Championships
Arazi was named champion 2-year-old colt in America and European Horse of the Year, but not before he underwent surgery to remove bone chips in both of his knees, an operation Boutin was reportedly against. The colt’s questionable front legs were in fact the reason he was sent overseas in the first place.
“He went to France because of his pedigree,” Paulson’s farm manager Ted Carr said in an interview with the Baltimore Sun. “He didn't have a perfect front end and horses wear better over there. The racing is not as hard as it is in this country on our dirt tracks.”
Regardless of the circumstances, the colt recovered and Boutin prepared him for a 3-year-old schedule that included a return trip to the United States to run in the Kentucky Derby. Arazi won his sole prep for the race, at a mile on the turf in France less than one month prior to the run for the roses. He entered the Derby with the kind of fanfare usually reserved for Triple Crown winners. The colt drew comparisons to Secretariat, and his owners were already responding to queries as to whether he’d pursue the Preakness and Belmont or head to Europe for the Epsom Derby after a Kentucky Derby win.
ARAZI BEFORE THE 1992 BREEDERS' CUP

But it wasn’t meant to be. Perhaps the competition and conditions of the superstar’s prep race were mistakenly overlooked by bettors, or maybe the surgery affected the colt more than he let on. Whatever the case, the .90-to-1 favorite finished eighth in the 1992 Kentucky Derby, the worst finish ever by an odds-on Derby favorite.
Connections regrouped and sent the colt back to Europe and he next finished fifth at Royal Ascot. He followed that up with a third-place finish before finally returning to form in October at Longchamp, where he won the Group 3 Prix du Prince d’Orange. His season, and career, culminated in an 11th-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Gulfstream Park.
The colt retired to stud at Sheikh Mohammed’s Dalham Stud in England and was later moved to Three Chimneys Farm in Kentucky, where he sired multiple Grade 1 winning millionaire Congaree. Arazi also stood in Japan, Switzerland and Australia, where he now resides as a pensioner at Independent Stallions in Victoria.