"That's it Buddy, We're Going to Try and Save You"

Sometimes you come across a story in horse racing that reminds us about the resiliency the animal, and the innate goodness of the humans who care for them. We have that and more with Phoo's Boy.

In 2012, a two and a half month foal and his mother were dropped off at a farm they would call home until the foal would hopefully embark on his training career. At ten o'clock on a Friday evening, everything was fine.

At some point overnight, something wasn't fine. The next morning they found the little foal with a two inch bullet wound in his neck, with an exit wound ten inches in diameter. He was still alive, doing what most of you who work or deal with see animals in pain do, soldiering on, with a will to live.

"He’s such a little fighter, he kept walking the field. He just kept walking and walking and the mom was right behind him keeping anything else away from him.”

The little colt was brought to a clinic and the owner-breeder (one of those crusty guys who you'd think would make a decision he's made before), decided differently.

After surgery, Russell Equine Photo

“When I got to the clinic the hole on the right side of his neck was the size of an egg and the hole on his left side of the neck was the size of a football. I put a flashlight to his neck and could see his vertebrae. I kept thinking, he’s going to have to be put down. But I walked into the stall and he came over to me and put his head against my belly and I said, ‘that’s it buddy. We’re going to try and save you.’”

After a long road, Phoo's Boy made it, and began his racing career in earnest, just last month.

To the idiot kids who shot this poor horse, you failed to get the job done. The toughness of the standardbred and the good hearts of the people who care for him, won the day.

To read the entire feature please visit here.  It's a nice ending to a terrible story.