Nelson Bunker Hunt

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Nelson Bunker Hunt (born February 22, 1926) is an American oil company executive. He is chairman of Hunt Exploration and Mining Company (HEMCO).

He is the son of Lyda Bunker and H. L. Hunt.

Nelson Bunker Hunt played a very significant role in the discovery and development of the oil fields in Libya which would later be nationalized by Muammar al-Gaddafi.

Hunt declared bankruptcy and was convicted in 1988 for trying to corner the market in silver through International Metals Investment Company Limited.

He was active in right activism, including the John Birch Society and the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics. He has donated millions to Campus Crusade for Christ, Christian World Liberation Front, Moral Majority, Christian Broadcasters Network, and Strategies to Eliminate Poverty (STEP).^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Thoroughbred horse racing

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) calls Nelson Bunker Hunt a "legendary owner-breeder". In 1955, he bought his first Thoroughbreds and by the 1970s his breeding program had became one of the world's largest and most productive. Winner of the U.S. Eclipse Award for Outstanding Breeder in 1976, 1985, and 1987, he owned the 8,000 acre Bluegrass Farm in Lexington, Kentucky and raced Thoroughbreds in Europe and North America. Among his horses, Hunt bred or raced Vaguely Noble, Dahlia, Empery, Youth, Exceller, Trillion, Glorious Song, Dahar and Estrapade.

In 1973 and 1974, Nelson Bunker Hunt was the British flat racing Champion Owner and in 1976 won England's most prestigious race, the Epsom Derby.

Financial difficulties forced Hunt to liquidate his Thoroughbred operations. A 1988 dispersal sale of 580 horses at Keeneland brought in $46,912,000, the highest amount in the history of Thoroughbred auctions. In 1999, he returned to Thoroughbred ownership but in a limited way.