Durant: The Man Behind the $10.5M Flightline Colt

Consignors Dean DeRenzo and Randy Hartley of Hartley/DeRenzo Thoroughbreds shattered records last month when they sold a brilliantly fast son of Flightline for a record-breaking $10.5 million at the Ocala Breeders' Sales Spring 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale. The colt broke the OBS record previously held by Brant, who commanded $3 million at the 2025 OBS March Sale. DeRenzo and Hartley were the leading consignors of the OBS Spring Sale, having also sold a Jackie's Warrior filly for $2.3 million—the highest price ever paid for a filly at OBS. While the son of 2022 Horse of the Year Flightline grabbed a lot of attention with his record price and a blistering :09 3/5 workout, the story began with Texas auto dealer Tom Durant, who secured the colt for $575,000 as a weanling. Durant, 76, owns Classic Chevrolet, an auto dealership in Grapevine, Texas, along with 16 other Chevrolet dealerships. Classic Chevrolet has ranked the No. 1 Chevy dealer in the world by sales for the past three years, 2023-25, according to GM Authority newsletter. He got his start in the horse industry by dabbling in Quarter Horse racing in the 1980s, buying a mare for $100,000 named Glory Be Good, a daughter of Old Pueblo, a highly influential Thoroughbred stallion who was utilized in Quarter Horse breeding programs. Durant purchased Glory Be Good with a Pie in the Sky filly by her side, and back in foal to American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame stallion and champion racehorse Rocket Wrangler. A few months later, Durant sold the Pie in the Sky filly for $125,000. "I thought, 'Man, this is too easy,'" he said. "I'd never paid more than $1,000 for a horse before." Durant shifted to Thoroughbreds in the 1990s because following the Quarter Horse circuit through Texas and New Mexico got to be too much. When Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas, opened in 1997, he decided he wanted to race close to home. Durant had a stable of roughly 40-50 horses running at Lone Star Park. Through 2024, Durant held the record for number of leading owner titles at Lone Star with eight. He got surpassed last year when End Zone Athletics earned its ninth title. One of his top runners was Florida-bred Touch Tone, who won the 2001 Alysheba Breeders' Cup Stakes at Lone Star, and finished second to Hall of Famer and 2001 Horse of the Year Point Given in the 2001 Haskell Stakes (G1). He was inducted into the Lone Star Park Hall of Fame in 2007. Durant joined forces with DeRenzo and Hartley seven years ago, thanks to DeRenzo's long-standing friendship with Durant's Texas-based manager Jack Bruner. The owner said he puts complete faith in the Hartley/DeRenzo team, as it picks out a handful of prospects for him each year and checks in on them online with the photos and videos provided by sales companies. While Durant's dreams include having a horse run in the Kentucky Derby (G1), he said the decision to sell the Flightline colt, now named Zedan, was a business decision. "I race horses, I sell horses, I had kind of a high limit on him at $2 million—I thought that was high," Durant said. "Those are the kind of horses you look for, but when he got to the value he was at, there's so much that can happen to a horse in a year's time, I decided to take the opportunity to capitalize on him now, rather than trying to run in the Kentucky Derby, which I never have done. I always wanted to, but there's too much you've got to get through in a year's time to get there." Durant had high hopes at the end of last year when his homebred D'Code broke his maiden by 8 1/4 lengths at Oaklawn Park for trainer Ray Ashford Jr., clocking the 6-furlong race in 1:09.57, the fastest 6 furlongs recorded by a 2-year-old in Oaklawn Park history, according to the racetrack. D'Code ran a disappointing eighth in the Southwest Stakes (G3) and has been sidelined because of an injury. "I kind of like playing both sides (racing and sales), because it gives me the opportunity to make some money, and then I still like to try to come up with that big horse," Durant said. "I had two of them this year that were potentially big horses, and they both got injured, but they're going to come back and, hopefully, I get to enjoy them down the line." Meanwhile, he still has big dreams associated with the colt Zedan. "I think he's going to be one of the next big studs, just like Flightline," Durant said. "There were two or three stud farms looking at him, including Flightline's people (Lane's End). The horse had the fastest work, but he also had the fastest gallop out. He's got all kinds of potential." Durant said when he sent his group of five horses to Hartley and DeRenzo last August, he said all the horses looked good, but the Flightline colt really blossomed under the training regimen. "He really changed after they put him in training," he said. "He started muscling up and, boy, he became a horse I didn't see at the farm." Building on the shared dreams sparked by Zedan, Durant will look to the fall sales to add fresh talent to his roster, focusing on promising weanlings and yearlings, dedicating himself to a sport he loves. "Having a big horse (is my goal)," he said. "I just like the sport. I like to watch it, and I like to have a good horse."