One of Kentucky’s biggest Thoroughbred horse farms is up for sale. Again.
Adena Springs, home to one of Central Kentucky’s largest Thoroughbred breeding operations, is on the market again.
The 2,300-acre farm just outside of Paris is owned by Frank Stronach, who put the property on the market in 2017 for $80 million. But the Canadian auto parts magnate and racetrack owner became embroiled in a legal battle with his daughter Belinda Stronach over control of various aspects of the Stronach operation.
Bernard Uechtritz of Dallas-based real estate firm Icon Global, who is offering the farm now, said that the farm came off the market after only a few months. The lawsuits ended in 2020 and Stronach, now 89, is downsizing his award-winning breeding operation.
So, the listing is real and, as the saying goes, it’s spectacular.
According to Uechtritz, the farm is one of the two largest of its kind “under one fence in the Lexington Bluegrass, the other is the renowned WinStar Farms in Versailles.”
Stronach built the farm and opened it in 2007 as a stallion facility with room for up to 1,000 broodmares and foals. And some of the most successful stallions in the business, including Ghostzapper and Awesome Again, have lived and worked on site. The main barns and offices are built to look vaguely like castles in Austria, Stronach’s birthplace.
There’s no set price on the listing. According to the Bourbon County PVA’s website, the property has a 2021 certified fair cash value of more than $20 million.
“We’re going to let the market tell us what it’s worth,” Uechtritz said Tuesday. “There’s a lot of interest around the world.”
The sale was announced in advance of the major breeding stock sales, when deep-pocketed buyers will be in Lexington, some flush with wins at the Breeders’ Cup World Championships in California last weekend.
Uechtritz said that the property might not stay one farm, or even a Thoroughbred farm.
“Although the complex was originally built for Thoroughbred breeding operations, its world-class infrastructure is multifaceted, versatile, and can easily convert to any equestrian discipline showplace, a horse park or even a co-op operation with central amenities,” he said.
The sport horse world has “been a huge factor in the increase in farm sales around Lexington,” he said.
Or the sale could go to one “uber-wealthy person who might want to build a mansion on the highest point at the back of the farm, with 360 degree views of Bourbon County, an incredible spot for a home, very private,” he said. “They may want to have it all to themselves for racing, for horse rescue or whatever.”
Icon Global is planning for 60-90 days of preparation and, if it hasn’t sold by then, will launch a campaign in the spring.
Uechtritz predicted a quick sale: “It isn’t a matter of if, but of who to, how much and when.”
