George Soros, the Hungarian-born billionaire who aggressively pushes the left’s political agenda in the United States, also has a financial tie to Justify, the chestnut colt favored to win the coveted Triple Crown in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes.
Soros is not only betting on Justify’s finish this weekend, however. The investor is hoping for a long-term win based on breeding rights.
WinStar Farm owns 60 percent of Justify’s breeding rights and China Horse Club 25 owns percent. Though, it’s the third group, “a secretive entity that holds the remaining 15 percent” that has avoided the spotlight. Soros Fund Management owns SF Bloodstock and SF Racing Group, an international breeding and racing entity launched in 2008, according to the New York Times.
The Times reported:
SF, which is also a part-owner of Newgate Farm in Australia, has breeding stock in the United States, Australia, England, Ireland and France. It could not be determined how much money Mr. Soros’s firm has committed to the horse racing business.
SF Bloodstock, which according to court filings is owned by SF Agricultural Holdings L.L.C., employs a for-profit model and focuses on the breeding side of the industry, purchasing stallions, or shares in them, and broodmares while selling yearlings at auction. In 2015, it entered into a three-year partnership with WinStar Farm and China Horse Club that allowed them to spend big while spreading risk at yearling and 2-year-old sales.
That is how the group partly acquired Justify and the third-place Kentucky Derby finisher Audible, but it quickly sold its racing rights in those horses to Head of Plains Partners and Starlight Racing.
If Justify pulls off the Triple Crown win, he will be one of only 13 horses to do so since 1978, ESPN reported. The last horse to accomplish the rare feat was America Pharaoh in 2015, ending a 37-year absence of a Triple Crown winner.
“Just how hard is it to win the final leg of the Triple Crown? There have been 141 Belmont Stakes run since the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont all existed,” ESPN reported. “Only 35 horses have won the first two legs. And only 12 have won all three.”
If Justify makes it to the winner’s circle he will have accomplished “the nearly impossible.”
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