22/09/2026

On Tuesday, 16 September 2026, at the American thoroughbred sales, a one-year-old colt — by the stallion Gun Runner out of the mare Luna Rosa — was purchased by the AMO Racing group for $3.1 million. The report comes from Grande Ippica Italiana. The animal, presented as lot 313 and bred in Kentucky by Rosa Colasanti, is a full brother to Locked, a multiple Grade 1 winner. The price made him one of the most expensive lots of the day.

The logic of the transaction was explained by Ben McElroy, representing the buyer: "Considering what we paid today, we have to hope to get the same result." And further: "The horse made a lot of sense even at that price." The plan is to break him at Ocala and begin race training between April and May next year. "Kia will choose the trainer," McElroy added, referring to the owner.

In the words of those who bought him, the colt's value depends entirely on what he can produce on the track. Physical appearance is mentioned as a secondary consideration, pedigree as a guarantee of performance, price as an investment to be recovered through results. The animal as such — his needs, his wellbeing, his nature — never enters the equation.

For IHP, news like this speaks for itself. In the world of horse racing, the horse is, first and foremost, a line in a balance sheet. He is worth what he wins, what he earns, what return he delivers on the investment. When he stops doing that, he becomes a "racing discard" — and that is the point at which the pipeline IHP has been documenting for years takes over: opaque disposals, untraced movements, clandestine slaughterhouses. But the problem does not begin when the horse drops out of the circuit. It begins much earlier, in the mindset with which the racing industry conceives of horses from the day they are born.
Photo: GRANDE IPPICA ITALIANA