FOOTBALL superagent Kia Joorabchian was outbid on a £2million horse by the son of billionaire ex-Manchester United shareholder John Magnier.
A battle of Premier League proportions over coveted mare Beach Frolic took place on Tuesday.
Joorabchian, 49, who is agent to stars such as Arsenal duo Willian and David Luiz plus ex-Liverpool ace Philippe Coutinho, was in the market to land the nine-year-old female horse.
Wealthy owners were bidding on Beach Frolic to buy it, breed it and hopefully produce future winners.
Beach Frolic, the mother of superstar horse Palace Pier, was in such high demand that the auction started at a whopping £1m.
Julian Dollar of Newsells Park Stud made the first move and the Racing Post reported how Joorabchian and racing partner Alex Elliott were also in the bidding.
However, the hammer came down on a winning bid of £2.2m from Coolmore stud’s Michael Vincent Magnier.
Michael is the son of Irish racing tycoon John, who was the biggest shareholder in United during the tenure of Sir Alex Ferguson.
Beach Frolic could now have a future date with Galileo – the world’s richest stud horse worth an incredible £180m.
In football terms, that’s more than the current transfer market value of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar.
SunSport told you how Galileo breeds winners at £600,000 a go.
And any offspring of the pair would carry huge expectations of being a top class champion.
Magnier has long been involved with horses but had a legal battle with Ferguson over the infamous Rock Of Gibraltar.
In fact, the row over the record-breaking £200m horse even led to the Glazer family’s eventual takeover of United.
Fergie thought he owned ‘half’ of the horse – which he believed included the lucrative breeding rights.
However, Magnier’s Coolmore stable felt the legendary manager was only entitled to half the prize money the horse won.
The row led to Magnier and his business partner JP McManus selling their shares in United to Malcolm Glazer and Fergie settled the case against Magnier out of court for a one-off payment of £2.5m.
For his part, Joorabchian seems to be making a big move into racing.
His Amo Racing group have enjoyed great success this year with Prince Alex.
The Ralph Beckett-trained three-year-old has won his past five races, earning more than £72,000 from eight runs in all.
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