TDN Weekend December 2016 Issue 9
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1056824
"They don't jump into anything with their eyes closed," Farrell said. "It's like when they're drilling for oil; they send out their frontrunners to check it out and then they make a business decision. They're very shrewd." After consulting with Farrell, Fluor drew up a basic business plan and brought it to Weiner, at least partially hoping his friend would talk him out of it. "I told K.C., 'This is probably the worst business idea I've ever had in my life, but we'll run it like a business,'" Fluor said. "'Second, if you're smart, as I know you are, you'll say no. Third, if you even want to consider this, go home and sleep on it, then come back tomorrow and say no.' He looked at me and said, 'Sounds like fun. I'm in. I don't need to sleep on it. I'm in.'" With Speedway Stable officially born, the pair found themselves sitting alongside Adger and Farrell in the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion two months later for The November Sale. They went in on Hip 99, the 4-year-old filly Leigh Court, a Canadian champion who had finished fifth in the GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint two days earlier and was being sold as part of Eugene Melnyk's dispersal. "That was maybe the second horse auction I'd been to in my life and we're going along and suddenly, the guy drops the hammer--bam!--and says, 'Sold, for $1 mil- lion,'" Weiner remembered. Fluor interjects. "K.C. said, 'Who would pay that for a horse?' And John looked at him and said, 'You did. Congratulations.' That's how we got started." Speedway went on to snap up Grade I winner Hard Not to Like for $1.5 m i l - lion just two days later at the Keeneland November Breeding Stock sale. The gray mare made the first start in Speedway's red and white colors less than three months later, in the GIII Endeavour Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs.