LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Breeders' Cup Classic winner Curlin has more than 400 new owners.
A state judge has given the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against three lawyers the right to claim part ownership of the 3-year-old colt who has earned more than $5.1 million on the track.
Judge William Wehr said the plaintiffs can make the claim through Midnight Cry Stables, the company used by attorneys Shirley Cunningham Jr. and William Gallion to buy the horse for $57,000.
Cunningham and Gallion own a 20 percent stake in Curlin, who won the Preakness Stakes in May and the Classic on Saturday for his sixth victory in nine career races. Curlin was third in the Kentucky Derby and second in the Belmont Stakes.
Wehr's order, issued late Thursday, comes in a case against Cunningham, Gallion and Lexington lawyer Melbourne Mills Jr. over the handling of a $200 million settlement in litigation over the diet drug fen-phen.
Wehr previously ruled that the attorneys bilked their clients of funds from the settlement and owe at least $42 million. Cunningham, Gallion and Mills are currently jailed in northern Kentucky awaiting a federal trial on charges of wire fraud stemming from the fen-phen settlement. They have pleaded not guilty.
The judge's three-page order allows the plaintiffs to claim Midnight Cry Stables and its assets, along with other assets the men own.
Cunningham, 52, and Gallion, 56, bought Curlin as a yearling. They sold controlling interest in the horse in February for a reported $3.5 million to a group composed of Jess Jackson, founder of Kendall-Jackson wines; Satish Sanan's Padua Stables; and George Bolton, an investment banker.
Gallion and Cunningham retained a minority interest in the horse through Midnight Cry Stables.
After the Classic at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J., Jackson said no decision had been made whether Curlin would run next year as a 4-year-old.
Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press
Source: ESPN.com
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