Lothenbach racehorse digital dispersal totals more than $4 million

Multiple stakes-placed gelding Minnesota Ready sold for $380,000 on Friday to lead a digital dispersal of the late Robert Lothenbach’s Lothenbach Stable’s horses of racing age.

The Lothenbach racehorse dispersal took place on Fasig-Tipton’s digital platform, with bidding opening on Jan. 29 and closing on lots sequentially beginning midafternoon on Feb. 2. Fasig-Tipton reported that 66 horses, all consigned by Taylor Made Sales, as agent, sold for a total of $4,840,000. The average was $73,333 and the median was $41,000.

"All I can say is, 'Wow,'" Leif Aaron, Fasig-Tipton's director of digital sales, said in a release. "We have to thank the estate of Mr. Lothenbach for trusting us with this dispersal of racing stock. This is exactly what the digital platform was built for: horses and buyers from all over the country. These are phenomenal results."

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Minnesota Ready topped the dispersal when sold for $380,000 to Richard C. Colton, Jr. The homebred 5-year-old More Than Ready gelding is coming off a pair of strong efforts at Fair grounds, where he is currently based with trainer Neil Pessin. He finished third in both the Richard R. Scherer Memorial on Dec. 23 and the Duncan F. Kenner Stakes on Jan. 20.

The next two highest prices were $360,000 for Dazzlin’ Dictator and $340,000 for Happy American. Trainer Rodolphe Brisset, as agent for Ann Harrison, purchased Dazzlin’ Dictator, a 3-year-old American Pharoah filly. The filly has won back-to-back races at Turfway Park under the tutelage of Ian Wilkes, including a one-mile allowance-optional claiming race on Jan. 5.

Pessin, the trainer of Happy American, placed the winning bid on the 6-year-old Runhappy gelding, who won the 2022 Tenacious Stakes at Fair Grounds before winning the Grade 3 Louisiana Stakes in January 2023. He most recently finished third in the 2023-24 renewals of those two races.

The digital racehorse sale was one part of a three-pronged dispersal for the Thoroughbred holdings of Lothenbach, who died last November. Next week’s Fasig-Tipton Kentucky winter mixed sale will offer the late owner’s broodmares and just-turned yearlings, while his juveniles are cataloged to the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s March sale of 2-year-olds in training next month.

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