How Sir Alex Ferguson Fell In Love With Horse Racing

Since horse racing is considered one of the most prestigious sports in the world, it is common to see big football names joining Jockey Clubs and investing their own money into the sport. Since we are talking about a mixture of football and horse racing, the name that climbs to the top is Sir Alex Ferguson.

Sir Alex Ferguson is one of the most popular names in Football that started his career as a player and become a legendary manager for Manchester United. He had a rather successful career in football getting 38 major trophies and played an important role in the development of the team.

However, we are not interested in his passion for horse racing. If you follow Sir Alex Ferguson’s career, then you probably already know that he is heavily involved in the horse racing industry.

One of the biggest examples of horse racing and football coming together is Scot’s part-ownership of Rock of Gibraltar,  the 2002 European Horse of the Year. 

Where was His Passion For Horse Racing Born?

Well, it all started with the story of the Rock of Gibraltar, and it is an interesting one.

John Magnier, who at the time was a major shareholder in Manchester United along with J.P McManus who is a big player in Irish Horse racing introduced Ferguson to horse racing and he fell in love with the sport ever since.

Ferguson was gifted a 50% stake in a horse by John Magnier and the horse racing fever was already there. You can check the preakness stake results here  twinspires.com/preakness-stakes/results

After Ferguson learned more about the horse racing industry, he was already seeking a greater financial gain from the horse’s lucrative stud fees, but Magnier had other ideas. The legendary Ireland stud owner, who has also been a Senator in the upper house of the Irish Government, wanted to stay in control of Coolmore Stud, which was a breeding operation he owns based in Co. Tipperary.

At that time, Magnier or McManus didn’t expect the horse to be as good as he turned out to be, winning seven Group 1 races after an arrangement with Ferguson. He was valued at around $261 million when he went to stud, but eventually, Ferguson settled for $3 million which he considered to be favorable for him. 

Later Magnier and McManus turned against Ferguson in a series of concerns addressed by the club’s hierarchy and eventually selling to the unpopular Glazer family.

The instant success of Ferguson’s co-ownership in horse racing was the reason why the famous football manager fall in love with horse racing. With that said, this wasn’t his first investment in the horse racing industry. However, it is the most important one that brought him the most success.

Since then, Ferguson has invested in different horses but didn’t manage to get as close as the success of his first horse-racing deal.

Here are some of the horses he owned so far.

Monmiral

Even though it didn’t get huge success in the horse racing world, Monmiral was a great horse that Sir Alex owned with John Hales. The horse managed to win on the first day of the Grand National Meeting in 2021 which was a Grade 1 race.

Queensland Star

This horse was one of the first horses that introduced Ferguson to horse racing. Ferguson often crossed paths with trainer Jack Berry, in an attempt to purchase a two-year-old called Queensland Star for £17,000.

Queensland Star won the first time of asking at Newmarket in 1998, earning Ferguson some money.

Protektorat

Protektorat is another really successful horse owned by Sir Alex Ferguson, who managed to win three Grade 1 races at Aintree in one day. He continued his success by winning Grade 2 Unibet Many Clouds Chase during Christmas 2021 with a surprising 25 lengths between him and Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Native River.

The Protektorat was one of the best jumpers in the industry that promised a lot of Grade 1 wins. However, he didn’t achieve what everyone hoped for after a disappointing fourth place in Betway Bowl and Third Place in the 2022 Cheltenham Gold Cup.