Sekiguchi Didn't Buy $8-Million Storm Cat Colt, According to Daughter-In-Law

Yukari Sekiguchi, the daughter-in-law of Fusao Sekiguchi, said her father-in-law did not buy the $8-million Storm Cat--Welcome Surprise colt Tuesday that became the most expensive horse ever sold at the Keeneland September yearling sale.

"(It was) not us," she told The Blood-Horse Wednesday afternoon. "Mr. Mori has a new owner."

The flamboyant Fusao Sekiguchi and his daughter-in-law were at Wednesday's session of the Keeneland sale in Central Kentucky, sitting on the third row from the front near the middle of the sale pavilion. It had been widely speculated that Sekiguchi was the buyer of the Storm Cat colt. In 1998, Sekiguchi purchased eventual Kentucky Derby (gr. I) winner Fusaichi Pegasus at the Keeneland July select yearling sale for $4 million.

Earlier Wednesday, Fusao Seckiguchi told a reporter that he had bought the $8 million Storm Cat colt. Yukari Sekiguchi later declined to make a comment to some other reporters.

Arthur B. Hancock III declined to comment about a report that the colt was at his Stone Farm near Paris, Ky.

"I've been told not to comment," he said, when contacted by telephone Thursday morning.