Trainer of Kia Joorabchian's £4.5million horse 'not expecting fireworks' on debut

Big-spending Kia Joorabchian will see the wraps come off the horse he smashed records to get his hands on. The football agent has splashed the cash to turn Amo Racing into a team fit enough to tackle racing superpowers like Godolphin, Coolmore and Juddmonte.

During last year’s spending spree he broke the record for the most money ever paid for a yearling colt at a European auction. He outbid Coolmore to buy a son of Wootton Bassett out of a winning sister to Oaks heroine Was for £4.5 million at the Tattersalls October sale. He was highest priced paid colt bought at auction in the world in 2024.

Joorabchian’s bloodstock agent Alex Elliott described the colt on the day "as close to perfection as you can get’. He added: “I said to Kia when I first showed him the horse that you can't get better than that. I said, 'Kia, you have been second in two Derbys, this is the horse who could take you one place better'.”

READ MORE: Jockey sacrifices chance in race to go to aid of rival on bolting horse

READ MORE: Police launch murder hunt after well-known jockey gunned down outside home

Amo Racing has won two Group 1 races this year and is putting its faith on this year’s two-year-old crop getting the team to a higher level.

The £4.5m colt was named Poker and put into training with Karl Burke, who has trained 51 two-year-old winners this year, but has played down expectations ahead of his racecourse bow at Haydock.

“It is very much a first run and he’s a work in progress who is a horse for next year really,” said Burke. “He’s ready to run and I’m not expecting fireworks but hopefully he can run a nice race.

“I don’t want to keep galloping him at home and he’s ready to go to the races. This is a nice track and a good starting point for him, but he will probably want further as well.”

Poker was part of a mammoth spend by the Amo team at Tattersalls’ Park Paddocks in October, as they also landed the sales-topping 4.4million guineas Frankel filly named Partying who is in training with Kevin Philippart de Foy, as well as a 2.5million guineas sister to Arc-winning Alpinista, who has appropriately joined Sir Mark Prescott.