Lion Tamer sold, may race

Michael Tabor has sold his Grade 1 winner Lion Tamer to a partnership that intends to stand the horse at stud in 2007.

But the partners have not ruled out the possibility of running the 6-year-old in 2006, one of the partners has said.

Lion Tamer's new owners are Harvey "Drew" Peltier III, Bryan Harang's Georgia Farms, and R. Allan Savoie's Rebecca Farms, all of Thibodaux, La., and Peter Willmott's Willmott Stables of Chicago. The group announced the deal Monday.

Lion Tamer has not competed since finishing third in the Breeders' Cup Sprint in October. By the time Harang, Willmott, Savoie, and Peltier struck their deal with Tabor, they felt it was too late to rush the horse to stud, Harang said. That makes racing a possibility.

"He's at a lay-up farm in central Kentucky now," Harang said. "We didn't buy him to race, we bought him to breed. But it's such a long time until the next breeding season, we wouldn't rule it out."

Lion Tamer, a of son Will's Way out of the Olympio mare Tippecanoe Creek, won the Grade 1 Cigar Mile in 2004. Trained by Todd Pletcher, he has an 8-3-2 record from 20 starts and $1,000,727 in earnings.