The Green Monkey – World’s most expensive auction thoroughbred dies

You may have heard of him, you may well not, but it has been announced that The Green Monkey has died at the age of 14 in Florida having been suffering from laminitis.

In case you did not know, and many won’t, The Green Monkey was the most expensive thoroughbred to ever sell at auction fetching the sun of $16m when sold to Demi O'Byrne, acting on behalf of the Coolmore partners, back in 2006 at the Fasig-Tipton Calder Select Two-Year-Olds In Training Sale.

At this time this was huge news in the bloodstock world. The previous highest price for a two-year-old at that time was $5.2m and the previous world auction record was $13.1m paid for Seattle Dancer at the 1985 Keeneland July Yearling Sale.

"He'd better be good," O'Byrne reportedly told reporters at the time "Time will tell."

Time did tell and the reason you may have never heard of the beast is that simply, as touched upon on http://www.girdysgeegees.com/history-of-the-thoroughbred, is his racing career was basically a complete failure. He was trained by Todd Pletcher and raced three times never troubling the judge. He was no great shakes as a sire either, Hartley/De Renzo Thoroughbreds who offered him at the sale buying back a half share of the horse, he stood at their at their base in Florida for a fee of $5,000 siring just the four black-type winners. http://www.hartleyderenzo.com/stallions/the-green-monkey.html