Bold and Bossy, the seemingly doomed filly whose career debut last summer at Ellis Park was stalled a year after a headline-making escape escapade and capture followed by her subsequent rescue from a barn fire at the Henderson, Kentucky, track the next day, made her long-awaited racing bow recently at Belterra Park.
Bantry Farm's 3-year-old Strong Mandate filly finished a tiring third July 5 in the eighth race, a $17,000 maiden special weight going six furlongs at Cincinnati track after pressing the pace.
Despite the filly's finish, the race was nothing short of a success for trainer Michael Ann Ewing and others who nurtured the filly back to racing fitness after her two perilous days that jeopardized her life last year.
“It's sort of like being a parent and you have a child that has a great difficulty or a sickness or injury,” Ewing told Thoroughbred Daily News. “You nurse them and you don't know what the outcome is going to be and then when it's really positive, there's a very big sense of, I guess, pride. There was a lot of commitment there, a lot of time and a lot of energy. I'm just happy to see her healthy and happy.”
As a temperamental 2-year-old, Bold and Sassy got loose from the post parade en route to her maiden debut last August at Ellis Park, dumped jockey Miguel Mena, jumped the rail in the barn area, and eluded pursuers for miles as she ran in traffic down a state highway then Interstate 69 before crossing into Indiana where she was eventually caught and returned to the track in a horse ambulance.
“Thank God she wasn't hit… For all that, and she ran a long way, she was just missing a couple of shoes,” Ewing said at the time. “She did 'grab a quarter' (where a hind hoof knocks some flesh off the heel of a front foot), but it's not bad. Most severely, she was 'tying up' (cramping) when they caught her, and she's really dehydrated.”
The following day the brother of a groom rescued her from a fire in the Ellis Park receiving barn, where she was stabled to rest after her return while awaiting shipment back to Ewing's base at the The Thoroughbred Center in Lexington. She was the only horse in the barn to be burned as she was the last one led out, losing some hair and skin on her withers. Ewing was also worried about smoke inhalation, but the filly had no lung damage.
“I thought that this filly was such a bad-luck horse,” Ewing told the publication. “But now, I think maybe she's a good-luck horse because she survived.”
Bold and Bossy is likely to make her second start in the next few weeks at Belterra Park.
To read the full story at Thoroughbred Daily News, click here.
To read more about trainer Michael Ann Ewing and Bold and Bossy's recovery at Paulick Report, click here.
The post ‘I Think Maybe She’s A Good-Luck Horse Because She Survived’: Runaway Filly, Fire Survivor Bold And Bossy Finally Makes It To The Races appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
