Arazi (horse)

Arazi (horse)

Arazi (born March 4, 1989, in Kentucky) is an American-bred Thoroughbred racehorse from France, whose performance in the 1991 Breeders' Cup Juvenile is considered by the U.S. National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) one of the most spectacular in Breeders' Cup history.

A chestnut colt with a crooked white blaze on his face (like his grandsire, Northern Dancer), at 15.2 hands Arazi was a small horse by Thoroughbred standards. Bred by Ralph C. Wilson, Jr., owner of the NFL Buffalo Bills, he was bought at the Keeneland Sales in Kentucky as a weanling for $350,000 by American businessman Allen E. Paulson. Chairman of Gulfstream Aerospace and a pilot, Paulson named the horse for the Arazi aeronautical navigational checkpoint in the Arizona desert. Paulson owned racing stables in the United States and Europe; he sent Arazi to France, where the renowned trainer François Boutin took charge of his conditioning.