Tag: Chino Valley Equine Hospital

Champion Echo Zulu Euthanized Following Stall Accident

L and N Racing and Winchell Thoroughbreds' Eclipse Award-winning 'TDN Rising Star' Echo Zulu (Gun Runner–Letgomyecho, by Menifee), was euthanized Sunday at the Chino Valley Equine Hospital in Southern California. Daily Racing Form was first to report the news. Trainer Steve Asmussen told the Form's Steve Andersen that the filly became cast in her stall and injured herself when trying to get back on her feet.

“She was beyond special. My condolences to all who loved her,” Asmussen told the Form.

David Fiske, who has served as the racing and farm manager for Winchell Thoroughbreds for 44 years, told TDN via phone on Monday what he knew about the Feb. 18 accident, his voice at times cracking with emotion.

“What I was told–since I wasn't there, I don't have firsthand knowledge–is that she got cast in her stall [Sunday] evening and broke her leg above the plate that had been inserted, and [worsened the injury] trying to get up. There was no real option other than euthanasia.”

Bred in Kentucky by Betz/J. Betz/Burns/CHNNHK/Magers/CoCo Equine/Ramsby, Echo Zulu was hammered down to Winchell Thoroughbreds for $300,000 from the Betz Thoroughbreds consignment at the 2020 Keeneland September Sale. A highly impressive debut winner at Saratoga in July 2021, Echo Zulu took the GI Spinaway S. and GI Frizette S. by open lengths and locked up the Eclipse Award with a dominating 5 1/4-length success in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies at Del Mar.

 

 

Kept around two turns for the first half of her sophomore season, the bay wired the GII Fair Grounds Oaks, but didn't see out the nine-furlong trip of the GI Kentucky Oaks and finished a close third. Returned to sprint trips for the rest of the season–and her career–she posted a towering victory in the GIII Dogwood S. that September and ran Goodnight Olive (Ghostzapper) to 2 1/2 lengths when runner-up in the GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint.

Kept in training at four, Echo Zulu took out the GIII Winning Colors S. with a then career-best 97 Beyer Speed Figure, but she upped her game further still, romping by 7 1/4 lengths in Saratoga's GII Honorable Miss H. in July before overpowering Goodnight Olive in the GI Ballerina H. She earned 112 Beyers for both efforts. She was training towards a start in the Breeders' Cup when she suffered fractured sesamoids in an October workout, underwent surgery and had remained at the clinic since.

In the estimation of 70 voters, Echo Zulu was the top filly and mare sprinter of 2023, but Goodnight Olive secured 142 first-place votes after defending her Filly & Mare Sprint title at Santa Anita and took home the statuette for the second straight year.

Up until the stall accident, Fiske said Echo Zulu's post-surgery recovery had been progressing on an optimistic arc.

“It had been going really well,” he said. “Steve [Asmussen] and I had been talking about her on Saturday morning, how she was getting very close to being able to travel. We kind of saw on the horizon her getting to a point where she could walk onto an airplane and come back to Lexington. So she was very close.”

Fiske added that the reality of Echo Zulu's passing still hasn't sunk in for him or those directly involved in her care.

“Even though I knew about the situation [Sunday] evening, and had anticipated having to deal with these questions and text messages and whatever else today, even with the lead time, I still don't have the vocabulary to adequately express what she meant to us and what she meant to our program,” he said.

In a social media posting on the X platform, Michael Levinson, the racing manager and a partner of L & N Racing, wrote: “Extremely sad and upset about the passing of Echo Zulu, she was a true champion and will forever be in our hearts at L & N Racing. Rest in peace champ.”

Added Ron Winchell: “It's devastating and beyond sad for our team. This happened at a point when we were just starting to feel good about her recovery. She is absolutely irreplaceable.”

A half-sister to fellow 'Rising Star' Echo Town (Speightstown) and GSW J Boys Echo (Mineshaft), Echo Zulu posted a record of 9-1-0 from 11 starts and amassed earnings of $2,640,375.

–Additional reporting by T.D. Thornton

 

The post Champion Echo Zulu Euthanized Following Stall Accident appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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After Near-Fatal Experience With Black Widow, Mulhall’s Miracle Horse Catemaco Wins Racing Debut

The Catemaco story reads like a chapter right out of “Frankenstein,” Mary Shelley's classic 1818 horror novel of a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment.

But Catemaco's tale has a happy ending.

A 4-year-old colt bred in California on March 23, 2017, Catemaco won his first start Friday by a widening four lengths at Santa Anita in Arcadia, Calif., leading throughout six furlongs in a sprightly 1:09.08, paying $30.60 to his scattered backers and earning $36,000 for owners Twilight Racing LLC and Steve Taub, all pretty remarkable facts in their own right.

But truth be told, it's a miracle Catemaco is even alive.

He swallowed a black widow spider when he was four months old, had a reaction that put him near death and would have died if it hadn't been for the diligent response of his trainer and breeder, Kristin Mulhall. She has the distressing details committed to memory.

After completing training at Santa Anita one morning, Mulhall arrived at her home in Covina Hills where she keeps some horses on her two-acre spread, only to find Catemaco lying down, “struggling to breathe.”

“The horse couldn't breathe at all,” Kristin said. “There was froth coming out of his nose, his eyes were bloodshot and cloudy. He was seconds away from dying.”

Mulhall's passion and persistence prevented his death even though she had only rudimentary tools at her disposal.

“I called my vet, Melinda Blue. We were on FaceTime and she was having her hair done. She said find anything, and I found a box blade. Fortunately, my tack room was right next to where the horse was. She told me to feel the ridges in his throat to find his trachea and slice a hole all the way through it, and he started breathing through that.

“Then I said, 'Now what?” and she said, 'Find any kind of tube,' and I found a syringe casing, cut the end of it and shoved it in, but I only had a couple minutes before the hole would plug up with foam and stuff.

“I tried to shove it in but the hole closed and he was flailing around really bad like a fish out of water, I tried to cut it again but couldn't.

“At that point, Humberto Gomez (Bob Baffert's exercise rider, known as Beto to friends) had returned and he held the horse's feet and head and I got it through the trachea the third time I tried, made a bigger hole which I was able to open with my finger to insert the casing.

“Then I called Melinda back and asked how the casing would stay in … I had to find dental floss and the largest needle I could, tie the dental floss to the needle and try to suture the hole the best way I could.

“I said I don't know how to do that. She said just tie a knot. Put it through the hole, through the skin and tie a knot on both sides, and that will hold it in until you get him to the hospital.

“Beto was holding Catemaco until I found everything I needed, we got it all done but then we didn't know if he was going to get up, if he was brain-dead or what.

“He got up after an hour. His eyes were still bloodshot and cloudy but he was up and walking. We put him in the back of the trailer with his mom and Humberto stayed with them, holding the tube in place.

“We took them to Chino Hills Equine Hospital and Dr. (Andreas) Klohnen, the head vet there, was absolutely shocked at what he saw. The horse would have been dead if we didn't do what we did, so the doctor was able to administer the correct implements for about two days before the swelling went down enough that they were comfortable to remove it.

“The horse was in the hospital about a week before I brought him back home and he's been fine ever since. It didn't affect him at all.”

Catemaco is named for a horse by the same name that Gomez said was 'a freak' when he rode him as a jockey in Mexico City. “It was the favorite horse he ever rode and he asked me to name my foal Catemaco, so I did,” Mulhall said. Catemaco also is a city in the Mexican state of Veracruz.

Kristin, 38, is the daughter of the late Richard Mulhall, who managed the late Prince Ahmed Salman's The Thoroughbred Corp. after a lengthy training career in Southern California. But her experience in horsemanship extends well beyond learning from Dad.

She was an Olympic-caliber equestrian rider through her teens before being grounded by a serious arm injury. She obtained her trainer's license in 2002 after working for trainer John Shirreffs.

Presently she has 23 head at Santa Anita and some horses for trainer Jonathan Wong at her Covina Hills location. Her emotions understandably flooded forth after watching Catemaco win on Friday.

“I couldn't hold the tears back,” Kristin said. “That's the first time I cried after a race. That horse means so much to me, he's so special. The fact that he lived through that and he had the heart to fight through that is pretty unbelievable.

“I grew up with War Emblem, Point Given, Spain and all those good horses at their farm. I was around some special ones.”

But none as special as Catemaco.

The post After Near-Fatal Experience With Black Widow, Mulhall’s Miracle Horse Catemaco Wins Racing Debut appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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