NEWS
A. P. Arrow to stand in South Africa
Posted: Sunday, May 31, 2009 5:57 PM
A. P. ARROW
Bill Denver/Equi-Photo
by Myra Lewyn
Multiple graded stakes winner A. P. Arrow has been purchased to stand in South Africa at Summerhill Stud in KwaZulu-Natal.
The seven-year-old by A. P. Indy out of Garimpeiro, by Mr. Prospector, was bought by a partnership of Summerhill, Johan and Gaynor Rupert’s Drakenstein Stud in Franchhoek Valley, and an undisclosed European investor.
A half brother to Grade 1 winner and sire Geri and Grade 3-placed stakes winner Almonsoon, A. P. Arrow won five of 29 career starts in five seasons and earned $1,463,887.
Campaigned by breeder Allen E. Paulson Living Trust, Kentucky-bred A. P. Arrow scored victories in the 2007 Clark (G2) and Skip Away (G3) Handicaps. He finished second or third in eight other graded stakes, including a runner-up finish in the 2008 Donn Handicap (G1) and third-place finishes in the ’07 Donn and ’06 Clark Handicap (G1). He made his final start on February 28 at Gulfstream Park for Michael and Lenora Paulson and trainer Ken McPeek.
“We’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this for several years,” Summerhill owner Mick Goss said in a press release. “Knowing that [North American horseman and Team Valor Stables President] Barry Irwin, for whom I have the highest regard, had valued him at several million dollars a short while back, when A. P. Arrow came into range, it was a chance we had to take.
“It was only the current financial crunch in the [United States] that made him reachable, and while we still had to ‘mortgage the farm’ to get him, we wouldn’t have fired so much as a shot for a horse of his class in normal times.”
Myra Lewyn is a Thoroughbred Times TODAY editor
