Leader sports editor
It has been a long three weeks.
Arkansas Derby winner Archarcharch, owned by Jacksonville salvage-yard owner Bob Yagos and his wife Val, will run in today’s $2.2 million Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.
Post time is 5:24 p.m.
Archarcharch will go off at 10-1 and run from the difficult, No. 20 post position in the 137th running of the race.
But at least the colt is finally running.
“The Arkansas Derby, it’s a long three weeks waiting for the Kentucky Derby,” Yagos said. “When you’ve got cheap horses you don’t worry about it so much, but when you’ve got a horse running in Grade I races you start worrying about the time between and what can happen and all that kind of stuff.”
And Archarcharch is definitely not a cheap horse, though compared to the offers the colt has drawn, his original sale price of $60,000 looks relatively inexpensive.
Yagos bought Archarcharch after trainer Rick Fires picked him out at the Keeneland September Yearling sale in Louisville.
Yagos left the actual evaluation up to Fires, 70, the veteran trainer.
Yagos said there are a couple of immediate factors a horse buyer considers — how the horse looks and how he acts.
“You first look at his conformation and his temperament and how he handles everything at the sale,” Yagos said. “Because usually at that one sale there’s 5,000 horses and probably 500 buyers standing around a small ring watching the horses.”
Obviously a well proportioned, athletic-looking horse who can handle himself in a crowd would seem ideally suited to the demands of racing, but a buyer must consider more, Yagos said.
“Then you go look at his pedigree,” Yagos said. “They’ve got sales books where you look at the pedigree and then decide.”
A buyer offered $500,000 after Archarcharch broke his maiden in the $60,000 Sugar Bowl Stakes on Dec. 18. The price went up to $800,000 heading into Archarcharch’s 3-year-old debut at the $100,000 Smarty Jones Stakes at Hot Springs’ Oaklawn Park in January.
After Archarcharch won the $250,000 Grade III Southwest Stakes in February, Yagos had three $2 million offers and was negotiating with a fourth, who planned to race Archarcharch in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
But in what has become a near legendary story, Val Yagos had a change of heart when the contract was held up on a deadline technicality, and Archarcharch came off the market.
The Yagoses didn’t want to break up Archarcharch, Fires, 70, and his son in law and jockey Jon Court, 50. Archarcharch, with Court aboard, then went on to win the Arkansas Derby to make today’s race.
“This is the first time for us, the first time for our trainer and the first time for our jockey,” Yagos said.
Arkansas Derby winner Archarcharch, owned by Jacksonville salvage-yard owner Bob Yagos and his wife Val, will run in today’s $2.2 million Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.
Post time is 5:24 p.m.
Archarcharch will go off at 10-1 and run from the difficult, No. 20 post position in the 137th running of the race.
But at least the colt is finally running.
“The Arkansas Derby, it’s a long three weeks waiting for the Kentucky Derby,” Yagos said. “When you’ve got cheap horses you don’t worry about it so much, but when you’ve got a horse running in Grade I races you start worrying about the time between and what can happen and all that kind of stuff.”
And Archarcharch is definitely not a cheap horse, though compared to the offers the colt has drawn, his original sale price of $60,000 looks relatively inexpensive.
Yagos bought Archarcharch after trainer Rick Fires picked him out at the Keeneland September Yearling sale in Louisville.
Yagos left the actual evaluation up to Fires, 70, the veteran trainer.
Yagos said there are a couple of immediate factors a horse buyer considers — how the horse looks and how he acts.
“You first look at his conformation and his temperament and how he handles everything at the sale,” Yagos said. “Because usually at that one sale there’s 5,000 horses and probably 500 buyers standing around a small ring watching the horses.”
Obviously a well proportioned, athletic-looking horse who can handle himself in a crowd would seem ideally suited to the demands of racing, but a buyer must consider more, Yagos said.
“Then you go look at his pedigree,” Yagos said. “They’ve got sales books where you look at the pedigree and then decide.”
A buyer offered $500,000 after Archarcharch broke his maiden in the $60,000 Sugar Bowl Stakes on Dec. 18. The price went up to $800,000 heading into Archarcharch’s 3-year-old debut at the $100,000 Smarty Jones Stakes at Hot Springs’ Oaklawn Park in January.
After Archarcharch won the $250,000 Grade III Southwest Stakes in February, Yagos had three $2 million offers and was negotiating with a fourth, who planned to race Archarcharch in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
But in what has become a near legendary story, Val Yagos had a change of heart when the contract was held up on a deadline technicality, and Archarcharch came off the market.
The Yagoses didn’t want to break up Archarcharch, Fires, 70, and his son in law and jockey Jon Court, 50. Archarcharch, with Court aboard, then went on to win the Arkansas Derby to make today’s race.
“This is the first time for us, the first time for our trainer and the first time for our jockey,” Yagos said.
