“I’m Just Getting Started” – Stewart Lays Down Gauntlet To His Doubters At Arqana

[Wandering Eyes]

John Stewart warned his doubters not to undermine the scale of his ambitions in racing after signing for Prix Rothschild runner-up Excellent Truth (Ire) (Cotai Glory {GB}) for €1.6 million through Goliath's trainer Francis Graffard [Stamford Bloodstock] and bloodstock agent Ghislain Bozo [Meridian Bloodstock] on Saturday.

It didn't take long for the champagne to be corked after Stewart made his mark on his first visit to the French sale ground with the addition of the highest-rated filly in the entire sale to compliment his $8 million haul at Tattersalls earlier in the week. 

He said, “She was number one on my list so she was going home with me, just like Vertical Blue [at Tattersalls]. I'm looking for horses to take to America that will dominate on the turf. I came over here specifically because I've won races all around the world but I haven't won any at Keeneland yet and it's my home track. I'm going to dominate there next year so I came up with this strategy to come over here. 

“All of these horses that I'm buying, I'm looking at their pedigrees to bring diversity back to the herd in Kentucky. We just exported, exported, exported for so long and there's really not a lot of people buying horses from Europe and bringing them back to America in large quantities. I think that's very important for all of us because Kentucky is very important to the global industry from a breeding standpoint and so I'm trying to focus on their pedigrees, only looking at horses that I think can win Graded races in America. That's what I'm here to do.”

He added, “I think that's a very reasonable price. The thing about this industry is there's a handful of buyers that are buying these top-of-the market horses so that market has never been stronger. I'm an investor, that's what I do for a living. I own a private equity firm. When you're getting into something, it costs more money but it's less risky to buy higher quality assets. That's what I think of these horses as. And I'm indifferent to price on an individual horse because I buy so many horses. I look at this as a portfolio. Like stocks. I may buy one horse and I may end up paying 500,000 more than I wanted, but then I may buy one for 500,000 less, and so then I just look at the overall spend. It's a different way of thinking about it.”

“Every time my horses have run against his horses, I've won,” – John Stewart

There are plenty of words one could use to describe Stewart, who has blown into the racing game this past year similarly to the hurricane-like weather that took over the sale ground on Saturday evening. Punchy might well be one of those words. 

“I'm just getting started,” he said. “I have a really big plan. Anybody that thinks that I did a lot in 2024 has no idea what I'm doing in 2025. I'm just trying to bring attention to horse racing globally. I make a lot of statements about what I'm going to do and things like that. It's not being arrogant, I'm just trying to get people to take notice that there's people investing in the industry when a lot of other people are saying that the industry is dying and all those different things and I just don't believe that.”

In the past week alone, leading American-based owners Mike Repole and LNJ Foxwoods expressed their dissatisfaction with Stewart's all-in approach to bloodstock separately. The 55-year-old revealed that those interactions actually spurred him on to spend more this week.

He explained, “When I started my private equity firm, I didn't [and still doesn't] have a finance degree. So everybody told me that nobody is ever going to invest in you because you don't have a finance degree. I went and had 350 meetings to get 22 people to say yes so I thrive on people telling me no. What has happened in the last 24 hours [with the spat on X], I actually doubled my intentions of what I was going to do. 

“Because the way I'm going to do it, I'm going to let my horses speak on the track and I'm going to let them win the races. I got called out by somebody [Repole] last year. He said I didn't know what I was doing-come on, I'll give you a tour of the winner's circle when I come to the track. He didn't know it but I'd bought Pounce at the Fasig-Tipton Digital Sale. Just 10 days later my horse beat his horse in a Group 3. Then I beat his horse in the New York Stakes in a Grade I. Every time my horses have run against his horses, I've won.”

He added, “I'm not trying to bid him up, but at Saratoga I purposely positioned myself right behind him so I could keep an eye on exactly what he was doing. He was the one making statements about bidding me up and you really can't bid me up.”

Stewart also spent a combined €1,050,000 through his own Resolute Racing on Flamme Rouge (Fr) (Sea The Stars  {Ire}) and Tazara (Ire) (Blue Point {Ire}). His 6,265,000gns spend at Tattersalls was headed by 3.2 million gns buy Vertical Blue (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}), with the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac winner understood to be staying in training with Graffard. 

On plans for his recent additions, he concluded, “I use a variety of trainers. My team will sit down and digest these and then we'll have to take a look at them and see which ones suit them. Village Voice is going to Chad Brown and then Vertical Blue is staying here. Chad Brown wanted that horse bad.”

Asked who was helping him buy at Tattersalls, given all of his bidding was done online, he said, “Francis is checking stuff out for me. I had other people as well. The Coolmore guys. When I'm not there, I'll have someone else looking at the horses and telling me what they think. We're giving them a list and then we have of course the vets and that kind of stuff that help us.”

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