Racing: Rock Fight
John Magnier and Sir Alex Ferguson are two such people, locked in dispute over a champion racehorse, Rock Of Gibraltar, now retired and worth an estimated £200 million at Magnier's Coolmore stud.
Ferguson, officially named the co-owner of the horse along with Magnier's wife, Sue, says he is entitled to 50%. Magnier says he is not that and that the claim is "without foundation". Magnier is worth several hundred million; Ferguson a few million.
On top of that, Magnier and his partner, the legendary gambler JP McManus, have bought into Manchester United, among the richest football clubs in the world, of which Ferguson himself is the manager.
I have observed Magnier many times on race-courses, and on one occasion even shared a paddock with him. That is not because, like him, I own the cream of European, perhaps world, equine bloodstock. It was because I knew someone who owned the ankle of a handicapper.
I was still able to observe him, though. What I observed was that, despite the self-deprecation, he appeared to be quite content with the image which the media have placed on him.
He, JP McManus, their trainer Aidan O'Brien and their current backer, the Londoner Michael Tabor, seemed to revel in the idea of themselves as the 'Coolmore Mafia' and the secrecy, respect and power which such a tag entails.
When Godolphin also appeared in the paddock the Dubai-based operation run by Sheik Mohammed; stable jockey, Frankie Dettori it became the battle of the sunglasses quite like playground gangs of gauche youths.
And Ferguson? I have no personal experience of him, but like most people I have watched him innumerable times being interviewed.
He has always appeared to me boorish, over-defensive and over aggressive. Nor am I convinced by his recent management of football players. His record at Aberdeen a lowly club that he raised to unimaginable heights in the 1980's stands uncontested and is a true achievement. His record at United is more open to question.
It might be asked how he did not manage to convert the United youth team he inherited containing Giggs, Beckham, Butt, Scholes, the Nevilles: an incredible array into conquerors of Europe.
The one time he won the European Cup was after a game in which he had been, except for the last few minutes when United scored twice, comprehensively outwitted by the opposing coach. That has happened more often than not.
His relationship with the former long-time United chairman, Martin Edwards, was fraught, even though Edwards kept him in the job after Ferguson took over in 1986 and failed to win silverware for several years.
As he pilloried Edwards for year after years, mainly through press leaks, and mainly concerning a salary he thought inadequate, Ferguson used the language of class warfare, as befitted a former shop steward.
It is an irony seemingly entirely lost on Ferguson that he was a class warrior asking for £1.6 million per annum, not to mention time off to indulge his new-found interest in thoroughbred racehorses bred in the purple.
That is where the story really starts, so let us examine the facts. And that is the problem. There aren't many. Ferguson was registered as Rock Of Gibraltar's owner in 2001. He is said to have paid £120,000 for a half share.
The key question is whether the figure referred just to racing rights or to breeding rights as well. The Rock, as he became known, won a record seven Group One races and almost £1.9 million in prize-money. He was an extraordinary racehorse whose exploits one could not have predicted.
He had performed one run, and one minor victory, when Magnier offered him to Ferguson. Yet what he won on the turf is dwarfed by what he might earn at stud.
Getting a mare serviced by The Rock will cost upwards of £100,000 a time. All being well, he will see around 150 mares a year. It is a multi-million pound business. Coolmore's top sire, Sadlers Wells, is 23 and still going.
And, like a crown prince, Rock Of Gibraltar's stock has risen following the accidental death of his father, Danehill, previously thought of as the heir apparent to Sadlers Wells.
That Magnier should be arguing with Ferguson over a difference between racing and breeding rights is itself deeply ironic, since the innovative marriage of such rights was what made his fortune.
Before Magnier got together with his father-in-law, the trainer Vincent O'Brien, and his earlier backer, the entrepreneur Robert Sangster, the two businesses were seen as separate.
Traditionally, champion racehorses covered around 40 mares a year.
Compared to Ferguson, who grew up in the tough Glasgow area of Govan, once owning a bar there (Fergie's), Magnier's upbringing is privileged and he undoubtedly he made advantage of it, introducing American bloodlines to the Coolmore stud that O'Brien had established, creating a whole new market, and targeting yearlings that could both be raced and then become stallions.
For the first time in the rather sentimental and ramshackle industry of horse racing, horses became commodities. In 2000, Sadlers Wells covered 196 mares at £200,000 each. The Camelot of Coolmore covers 6,000 acres, 600 employees, some 50 stallions and a checkpoint on the road.
It used to include one Charles Haughey as an owner, but Haughey proved dispensable. Incredibly, it is all tax fee, due to a deal Magnier struck with Government in 1969, when Haughey was Finance Minister.
Why did Magnier offer Rock Of Gibralter to Ferguson? He had offered horses to him before, and Ferguson had accepted.
None of them did much before The Rock, but Ferguson, by all published accounts, did not have to pay training fees, which are extremely high by most standards, but not so high as to put a dent in Ferguson's salary.
The likely answer must be that he was offered The Rock because he was manager of Manchester United, into which Magnier was putting an increasing stake, from the 6.77% stake of 2001 to the 23% of today.
If the holding of Magnier and his associates reaches 29.9%, he will be obliged by City rules to make an offer to all shareholders.
The Magnier/McManus stake continues to be represented as merely "an investment," but few believes it.
When Magnier makes his move for Manchester United is regarded as a matter of time. The Abramovich revolution at Chelsea conceals a crisis of player-power in football, which will likely lead in the end to salary capping and greater peace and quiet for investors.
It is this golden period that Magnier is thought to be banking on. In the meantime, Magnier will increase his stake in United only when the share price again represents 'value'.
The probability is that The Rock, even given his purple breeding, confused matters by exceeding his potential and worth. The certainty is that time has moved on.
Ferguson, like Haughey before him, is regarded as yesterday's man. He may be negotiating a new multi-million-pound contract at United, but the possibility is now starkly evident, as Ferguson himself must know, that it will be cancelled by his very nemesis.
Magnier's wealth, privilege and power will be pricking all Ferguson's resentments at once.
Ferguson's only hopes are that he has proof to show Magnier swindled him, as he is claiming, or that the supposedly publicity-shy Magnier will settle to avoid a court case.
That is a possibility, and indeed there have been reports this week of a £15 million settlement, but they do not square with the news that Magnier has employed Kroll, the detective agency, to investigate Ferguson's business dealings. Or maybe they do, and it is all a high stakes game.
If so, the real fall-out is on-going. The man who introduced the pair, Mike Dillon, the publicity director of Ladbrokes, has been strangely invisible of late.
And then there are the distinguished journalists who, giddy with their proximity to these men of power, now find themselves unable to respond to their editors' requests to report on them. The only millionaire to come out of this with any credit is Rock Of Gibraltar, and he doesn't even know he is one.
