Sid Craig, the co-founder of Jenny Craig Inc., who built the weight loss company with his wife and was a prominent thoroughbred horse owner, died Monday at 76 in San Diego.

Sid and Jenny Craig founded Jenny Craig Inc. in 1982 in Melbourne, Australia. The company eventually grew to include 655 weight loss centers in four countries. In 2006, Nestlé SA bought the Carlsbad, Calif.-based company for $600 million.

In the 1970s, he bought a stake in a women’s salon, Body Contour Inc., and later opened other salons. It was during this period he met Jenny Guidroz Bourcq, who worked as director of operations for the salons. The two later married.

The Craigs sold their stake in Body Contour and moved to Australia, where they opened the first Jenny Craig weight loss center.

“Together, he and Jenny built the strong foundation of our company’s values, culture, and mission of improving people’s lives by helping them lose weight and keep it off,” Jenny Craig’s chief executive officer, Patti Larchet, wrote on the company’s Web site.

Craig was born March 22, 1932, in Vancouver, British Columbia. In the mid-1950s, he worked as a part-time instructor at Arthur Murray Dance Studios and later purchased five franchises.

Craig and his wife owned Paseana, who won the Breeders’ Cup Distaff in 1992 and lost the same race by a nose in 1993. The couple purchased a 237-acre stable and breeding operation in Rancho Santa Fe, north of San Diego, in 1995.

Their horse Candy Ride won the $1 million Pacific Classic in track-record time at the Del Mar racetrack in 2003.

The Craigs also own a minority partnership in the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, and Sid Craig liked to accompany the team when it jetted to out-of-town games.

Sid Craig is survived by his wife and five children.