Friday, August 27, 2010

A Big Day!


It's a long road from the time you start contemplating breeding a mare, until you actually find yourself with a racehorse, if you even get that far! Picking the stallion, the vet visits to determine when the mare is ready to breed, van ride to the breeding shed, then the waiting begins. Waiting for two weeks to see if she's in foal...two more weeks to make sure she's still in foal....45 days, 150 days...and so on, till hopefully around 340 days you're sleep-deprived from night watch and baby finally arrives, safe and sound. February 10, 2007, little Miss Peaks joined us on the planet, and she was a big strong girl from day one.

"COME ON, PEAKER!!!!!!"

She had her ups and downs - she had surgery when she was less than a week old for entropian, at three months she had an R. equi infection and resultant pneumonia, though not as serious as some of those cases can be. Once she started training, she had a few setbacks as well, and was back and forth from track to farm a few times for some rest. I've been scanning the entries every day for the last week because I knew she was finally ready to run...and yesterday was the day! And she made us all proud - after breaking slowly and spotting the field a few lengths down the backstretch (some 13 lengths behind the leaders), she started picking up horses on the far turn and really came on in the stretch to get up for third, beaten just over a length. A couple of jumps later she had them - and she still hasn't got everything figured out! You can watch the replay, courtesy of Woodbine Entertainment, here. (Her real name is Clever Peaks).

7 comments:

Elizabeth McCrindle said...

I'm guessing you were screaming at the televison :))....looking forward to her next race!

Linda Shantz said...

No, had to go see this one in person! Wasn't going to miss the big UnStable homebred debut!

Kimberly Kelly Santini said...

Go Peeker Go!! allright - how exciting! I'm so proud of her! (and you too!!)

Elizabeth McCrindle said...

Just realised you took the photos..doh!! lol

Linda Shantz said...

:-D

And thanks, Kim...she was a star!

Carrie L. Lewis said...

That was an IMPRESSIVE and fairly sustained run around the outside and down the middle! Wow! I watched her from the get-go and could almost see that moment when she thought, "Hey, wait a minute, this isn't where I'm supposed to be" and off she went.

I can only imagine what a thrill it would be to have one of your own babies going to post for the first time.

Congratulations and thanks for the link to the race. Make sure to let us know the next time, too.

Carrie

Linda Shantz said...

Thanks Carrie, and glad you enjoyed the race. Quite a good effort for her first start!