He Made A Monkey Of Them All

He has been removed from public view. Green Monkey is going to stud, in 2009.

Green Monkey is probably the most infamous non-winning horse of all time. But it's not his fault.

Because he ran one furlong in 9.75 seconds at a 2YO HIT sale in Florida in 2006, two people took it into their heads that they'd like to own him. Through their surrogates Demi O'Byrne and John Ferguson they pushed his 'value' at auction to US$16 million at which figure the Coolmore interests had the last say. Not a bad twist on the US$425,000 the colt had cost as a yearling and rivalling the best excesses perpetrated prior to the fall of the Roman Empire.

I have a lot of trouble with the concept that a painting can be worth $50 million or more, but I know no unraced horse is worth US$16 million. At least a painting is a thing of permanence, unless thieves walk into your art gallery in broad daylight and steal it from under your nose, which seems to be happening frequently these days.

Meantime, human beings are being hacked to death and raped in Darfur and dying for a square meal elsewhere.

Green Monkey ran three times, finishing third and fourth twice. Under the USA's leading trainer Todd Pletcher, he banked $10,440. He is, roughly speaking, a 50% blood relation to a multiple G2 winning filly. His sire Forestry (Storm Cat) has sired 30 stakeswinners, three G1 winners amongst them. His dam Magical Masquerade (Unbridled) won one race. There is an Australian connection - her winless first foal is named Byron Bay.

It's been announced Green Monkey will stand at the Florida stud operated by the guys who sold him at that HIT sale. They could hardly decline the offer. I'm sure they will be knocked over with applications.

Personally, I reckon he is the Arabs' revenge for the now second-most-famous winless horse of all time, Snaafi Dancer. They waited 23 years.