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BORN TO RUN |
Weblog: The story of a racehorse
A not so lucky story for the Tweenhills team
THE first horse I ever saw at Tweenhills Stud was Lucky Story, the young stallion who was found dead in his paddock thismorning.
It was barely six weeks ago and he was being paraded by stalli0n man James Horton to a pair of breeders interested in sending their mare to him. As with so many stallions, he caught the eye with his masculine swagger - not overly aggressive but full of the kind of confidence that only having a succession of mares bused in for a date with you can bring.
It was poor old James who found Lucky Story this morning, looking for all intents and purposes as if he was still in the land of kip. He wasn't. A post-mortem is taking place as I write this but it seems as if 'Lucky' died in his sleep from some kind of blood clot or a coronary.
Lucky Story was the kind of stallion whowould make a stud employee's eyes roll skywards, because he liked to take his time with each covering. Bearing in mind that he would sometimes cover four mares a day, the first one at 7.00am, with a required four-hour gap between each mating, you get a feel for the kind of dedication that was required of those who worked with him. They wouldn't have had it any other way.
For among the many indelible imprints that have come from being involved in our 'Born To Run' series, it is just how hard the staff at Tweenhills work and just how much they care about their horses. If I had a pound for every time I had heard stud groom Roisin Close kindly call a mare 'big girl', I wouldn't need to be writing this right now.
But care they really do, and so when a text came from Tweenhills boss David Redvers at 11.04 this morning, you felt instantly upset for the staff, Redvers included.
The loss of Lucky Story is a particularly hefty blow following the death last year of Ishiguru, the sire of our adopted foal Born To Run, who failed to recover from injuries sustained in a paddocks accident.
We've already seen in our Born To Run series just how unpredictable the breeding game can be. It's just a real shame that the shocks it provides are not always happy ones.
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