Kia Joorabchian's $1 billion plan to revolutionise racing - but does it add up?

This article, exclusive to Members' Club Ultimate subscribers, was originally written in October and sees Peter Scargill get to grips with Amo Racing supremo Kia Joorabchian's remarkable new venture

In June, an unusual slice of racing history occurred in New York's Times Square, that heaving temple to capitalism in the heart of Manhattan. In what was almost certainly a first, one of those vast digital billboards, normally host to ads for films, mobile phones or sportswear brands, advertised to the masses below something completely different: a Kingman colt called Omniking, then an unraced juvenile trained in deepest Shropshire by Dave Loughnane.

One wonders what the tourists and New Yorkers below would have made of it, but if they were intrigued they did not have to go far to find out more. Just a few steps away, at the Palladium theatre, racehorse owner and sports investor Kia Joorabchian was preparing to address an audience on the subject of 'Horse Racing NFTs: Bridging Traditional Sports with the Metaverse'.