The most expensive thoroughbred purchased at auction has been retired.

The Green Monkey, who sold for a record $16 million two years ago as a 2-year-old and then flopped on the racetrack, will stand at stud in Ocala, Fla., beginning in 2009, racing industry publications reported last night on their Web sites.

Charlie O'Connor, of Ashford Stud, told the Daily Racing Form the colt will stand at the farm of Randy Hartley and Dean De Renzo, who bought The Green Monkey as a yearling for $425,000.

Seven months later, The Green Monkey was purchased for $16 million by John Magnier and Michael Tabor, co-owners of Ashford Stud, at a sale at Miami's Calder Race Course.

The Green Monkey, who was 0-for-3 in his brief career with earnings of just $10,240, will not be bred to mares until next year because O'Connor said "it's too late.

"Most people have already made their decisions with their mares," O'Connor told the Daily Racing Form.

A stud fee has yet to be determined.

"To me, he was an incredible, incredible horse," De Renzo said on the Bloodhorse Web site. "He had the feeling of a champion; he thinks he's a champion. ... This (being a stallion) is his second chance, and he looks phenomenal."

All of the The Green Monkey's races came last year when he was a 3-year-old. He finished third once and fourth twice.

He was purchased at a sale at Miami's Calder Race Course — the $16 million price topped the record auction price of $13.1 million paid for Seattle Dancer in 1986.