Padua sells interest in Curlin

Satish and Anne Sanan's Padua Stables has privately sold its interest in Breeders' Cup Classic and Preakness winner Curlin, who is expected to be named 2007 Horse of the Year.

A release issued late Tuesday afternoon by the Getty and Childers law firm in Lexington, Ky., said that Padua has sold its stake in the 3-year-old Smart Strike colt to Jess Jackson's Stonestreet Stable and George Bolton. Padua reportedly owned a 29 percent stake in Curlin as part of a group that included Stonestreet, Bolton, and the Midnight Cry Stable of Kentucky attorneys Bill Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr.

Stonestreet, Padua, and Bolton privately purchased a collective 80-percent interest in Curlin from Midnight Cry Stable for about $3.5 million in February after the colt won his first start, a Gulfstream maiden, by 12 3/4 lengths. That deal gave Stonestreet a 31 percent interest and Bolton a 20 percent stake.

Midnight Cry Stable originally purchased the colt for $57,000 at the 2005 Keeneland September yearling sale.

Gallion and Cunningham, who are accused of defrauding more than 400 clients of $64 million in a class-action lawsuit over the diet drug fen-phen, have been jailed since August. On Nov. 1, a Kentucky circuit court judge issued an order granting the fen-phen plaintiffs access to financial assets accruing to Gallion and Cunningham's Tandy LLC, the entity through which the two manage their interest in Curlin.