Fred Sahadi, Cardiff Stud Farm founder, dies at 91

Fred Sahadi’s death on June 4 at 91 closed a long run in California racing for a horseman who helped build the sport’s breeding and sales pipeline as much as he helped populate it. Sahadi was a major owner and breeder, the founder of Cardiff Stud Farm, a co-founder of Barretts Equine Sales and the father of trainer Jenine Sahadi.

His influence reached well beyond one farm name. BloodHorse described Sahadi as a force in every corner of California’s Thoroughbred industry, and the family’s roots in the game go back to the 1960s, when Fred and Helen Sahadi began claiming horses. From there, the operation grew into a business that touched ownership, breeding, sales and training across several generations.

Cardiff was not a static property. Sahadi started the operation on a 20-acre private farm in Los Gatos, then bought a 100-acre ranch in Solvang in 1973 and kept expanding the program from there. The California Thoroughbred Breeders Association traced another marker of that ambition to the 1972 Keeneland Summer Sale of Select Yearlings, where Sahadi signed the $65,000 ticket for Agitate under the Cardiff Stock Farm name. Agitate went on to earn $312,925 and finish third in the 1974 Kentucky Derby, a blunt reminder that Cardiff was producing more than local runners.

Sahadi’s reach also ran through the commercial side of the business. He founded Barretts Equine Sales in 1990, and other reporting places the company’s start in 1989 with Jerry McMahon and the late Ralph M. Hinds. Barretts became California’s flagship auction company for nearly 30 years before winding down, a clear sign of how much of the state’s horse economy passed through Sahadi’s circle.

The family name remained tied to top-class horses as well. Coverage of Jenine Sahadi noted that her father owned Desert Wine, the 1983 Kentucky Derby runner-up, another sign that Cardiff operated at the level of horses that could matter on the biggest stages. Cardiff itself later passed to Alex Trebek, reinforcing how prominent the operation had become in California racing. Sahadi was also a lawyer and a real-estate builder and developer, but in the Thoroughbred world his lasting legacy was more direct: he helped build the farms, the auction lanes and the horsemen’s network that kept California’s breeding scene alive.