Yesterday, as many of you have probably heard, Bold and Bossy “escaped” Ellis Park before the first – and her first – race and ended up on a Kentucky highway:
Apparently, the filly is all right – for now. But what caught my eye were the comments from Bold’s owner/trainer, Michael Ewing: “You think of all the silly baby things that are going to go wrong. I didn’t think this.” Indeed, Ms. Ewing, a mere baby (Bold had just turned two), and yet you had her at the ready to be whip-raced around an oval track where her young life would have clearly been in jeopardy. Ewing then added a bit of levity: “Thank god for all the people who jumped in to go find her because she left town.” And: “Apparently, she can run.” Good, clean fun, huh? Vile.
One of the things I thought is that there’s nothing silly about the horse running away. The filly was in fear for her own safety and those assholes from hell don’t give a damn! If the owner cared about the filly, the owner would not be forcing the filly to be galloped under tack and with blinkers on her bridle. What the owner did is STUPID besides morally depraved.
The filly lost her front shoes and got an injury to the heel of at least one of her front hooves. She is considered fine by these demonic psychopaths because she is still alive and able to walk on all fours. She is not fine! She suffered psychological trauma and physical trauma. She miraculously did not get hit by the oncoming motor vehicles. This despicable industry needs to be shutdown forever!!!
I’m glad you wrote about this, Patrick, because these “freak accidents” happen ALL THE FREAKING TIME in the sick game of horse racing. They usually don’t end up making headlines, though. Instead, the young, terrorized animal manages to stay on track grounds while she injures herself, often fatally, in her “hilarious” antics. But, of course, all those uber-compassionate and responsible folks in the biz don’t like to admit to most of these zany, wacky foibles unless they have to. And the racing press is happy to oblige by keeping most of them top secret.
This one managed to get out of the cloistered, secretive world of her Kentucky captors, so of course it’s one of the few times it must be “reported.”
Frankly, I think her connections are only laughing out of relief that the public didn’t have to witness the usual horror show: another drugged-up baby only being “caught” because she’d incurred catastrophic injuries during her momentary freedom.
And this poor filly is not OK – per a racing rag, she tied up and the idiot “horseman” Jack Hancock “kept her moving” after she was apprehended and while waiting for the horse ambulance. KEPT HER MOVING! – after what she just did! – elementary equine knowledge is to anticipate tying up (in this instance) and to keep her still. I couldn’t believe it when I read it…stupid of me. And she’s at extreme risk of road founder in addition to everything else.
She must have been terrified. She was shipped in for the race so she had no idea where “home” was. And those damn blinkers limiting her vision that entire time. There’s not an effing thing comical about what she endured or is yet to endure.
My first thought was that if she survives, they’re going to need to X-ray her legs. Poor thing will be lucky if she doesn’t shin buck.
DELMAR RACE 7 3 HORSES JUST WENT DOWN
Supposedly all the horses went back to their barns. They are saying more than 3 involved. Saying there are lacerations but no one laying on the track. Some of the jockeys are complaining of issues.
If the horse got hit by a car who’d be laughing then???
That was a miracle that she wasn’t hit. Also, it looked like she stayed on one side or the other next to the guard rail on the side of the highway, at least in the most of the videos that I saw, except for when she crossed over in front of traffic from one side to the other. Thankfully, the motorists had stopped and waited for her to cross the road in front of them. This whole incident shows the lack of common sense on the part of the owner and the whole racing industry. Mr. Paulick evidently was not ashamed or embarrassed to report such idiocy on behalf of the racing industry and people. If this filly had been stabled there all along, instead of being shipped in without having been raced yet, she might have ran back to the stable area when she escaped from her handlers.
Not funny, this horse could have been severely injured!
Sharon, this filly was, at the least, severely injured. Just because she didn’t have a broken leg doesn’t mean she was not severely injured, in my opinion. She could have been killed. The full extent of her injuries will be kept from public knowledge as much as possible by the racing participants. It is the modus operandi of the racing people to abusively EXPLOIT horses and dismiss and/or diminish the significance of the full scope of injuries, pain and suffering to the horses. The inept, incompetent and totally INSENSITIVE & INHUMANE TREATMENT of the filly, BOLD AND BOSSY (not Brassy) is INEXCUSABLE!
She may not have snapped a leg, but bruising to her soles (since she lost a shoe) and road founder are very real possibilities, to say nothing of the emotional and psychological trauma she endured. The fact that she trusted NO ONE around her and chose instead to take flight into the unknown speaks volumes about how these horses are treated. I’ve had horses get loose on a couple of occasions, and all it took was for me to call them and they came right to me, nickering as if to say, “Mom, THERE you are!”
I was told by a certain “man” working at a racetrack that the horses are not pets! That stands to reason since these people in HORSERACING are using the horses as TOOLS in their MORALLY DEPRAVED gambling business!
Owner/trainer Michael Ewing wouldn’t have found what happened to “Bold and Bossy” on a racetrack in Kentucky amusing if his mother would have whipped him to perform for “sport” at the age of “two”.
Christine, the owner does have a name that sounds like a man’s name but is actually a woman. Yes, Michael Ann Ewing is a woman! Also, the 2-year-old filly, BOLD AND BOSSY, is being treated for burns from a barn fire, the Washington Post reported.
I do not find this whole incident amusing. I believe that the owner of the horse should be punished!