Radcliffe, Phoenix Thoroughbreds continue rise to the top with $1M purchase

Bloodstock agent Kerri Radcliffe’s name has been showing up at the top of buyer lists with greater frequency in 2017, and she made one her biggest splashes yet in the U.S. market on Tuesday, when she secured an Orb colt for $1 million. The seven-figure price tag made him the co-sale-topper at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling sale.

Radcliffe bought the colt on behalf of Phoenix Thoroughbreds. Amer Abdulaziz serves as chief executive of the company, which is headed up by several major investors from points around the globe.

“We’re going to be expanding from racing into stallions and breeding,” Radcliffe said. “This is a long-term project, and hopefully these racehorses do it on the track.”

Radcliffe made six purchases at the Saratoga sale totaling $3.95 million. The second-most-expensive purchase was an $800,000 Scat Daddy filly.

“I’ve got the horses I really wanted, so that’s the main thing,” she said.

Radcliffe was an active buyer during this spring’s juvenile sales, highlighted by a $1.7 million Congrats filly who topped the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. March sale of 2-year-olds in training.

The Phoenix Thoroughbreds operation has also been a high-end buyer at recent auctions in Europe and Australia.

Bob Baffert and Jeremy Noseda are the primary trainers for Phoenix Thoroughbreds, and the Orb colt purchased Tuesday eventually will go to Baffert’s Southern California shed row.