By Bill Finley
Brothers Mark and Clint Cornett, who race under the name of C2 Racing Stable, have taken on HRH Prince Faisal Bin Khaled Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia as a partner in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic winner White Abarrio (Race Day). The 5-year-old will make his next in the Feb. 24 running of the G1 Saudi Cup. Mark Cornett said that C2 remains the majority owner, but declined to say how big of a percentage was sold.
The story was first reported by the Daily Racing Form's Mike Welsch.
Prince Faisal is the owner who lured trainer Jimmy Jerkens to Saudi Arabia to train a string of his horses.
“Winning the Saudi Cup is very important to them,” Mark Cornett said. “It's in his backyard and he'll be representing his country in an international race. You're going to have four or five Japanese horses, horses from all over the world. It's very important to them that they represent the Saudi people.”
Cornett said the deal has been in the works for about four weeks.
“We've been working on this for about a month,” he said. “They've flown over a couple of times to watch the horse breeze. Their vet has come over twice from France to do his due diligence. They ended up pulling the trigger on it and we consummated the deal this week. They're going to be great partners for us and we will be great partners to them. We look forward to doing additional things with them in the future.”
White Abarrio | Benoit
White Abarrio has remained at Santa Anita since winning the Breeders' Cup Classic there. Cornett said the gray will board a plane from LAX to Miami Feb. 13. From there, he will be joined by South Florida-based horses who will also be running on the Saudi Cup card before heading straight to Riyadh.
Though the owners have not committed to any races beyond the Saudi Cup, Cornett said the G1 Dubai World Cup Mar. 30 is definitely a possibility.
“The Dubai World Cup is definitely on our list of races,” he said. “He'll have to run the right way in the Saudi Cup and come out the race the right way. All the stars are going to have to line up. If that happens, we'll go in the Dubai World Cup. If not, we'll bring him back to New York and take a look at the Met Mile.”
White Abarrio worked four furlongs (:47.60, 6/73) on Friday morning at Santa Anita.
“The horse is doing better than he's ever done,” Cornett said. “I talked to (trainer) Rick (Dutrow) this morning. He breezed a half in :47 3/5 as good as he ever has and came out of the work great. The horse is definitely on his game.”
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