STARS AND STRIPES AND STAR-SPANGLED BANNERS

Jean Cruguet with A.P. Arrow
(Image : Leigh Willson)

JEAN CRUGUET
“1977 US Triple Crown Winning Jockey”

If there’s any virtue in hardship, it’s that it makes us appreciate the good times when they come around, and there are any number of stories among the champions of the business, political and sporting worlds of people who grew up tough. How many kids have emerged from poverty with a greater hunger than their coddled contemporaries, how many rags-to-riches stories are there of people who’ve been driven by the memories of their deprivation and their envy of those who had it all?

Just as France’s “impregnable” Maginot Line was overrun by German invasionary forces in the spring of 1939, a toddler who was to inscribe his name into thoroughbred lore, was born to an impoverished French family in Agen. At the tender age of 5, Jean Cruguet was placed in an orphanage after his father abandoned the family, leaving his mother destitute. She had no choice, and from 10 to 16, the young Cruguet lived at a secondary school run by Catholic priests, where he faced all sorts of abuses, not the least because he was the smallest guy in the school. At 16, his size became his greatest asset, as an associate of his grandfather offered him work at a thoroughbred racetrack. A budding career in its embryo stages as a jockey was interrupted by mandatory military service in the French Foreign Legion in Algeria. Cruguet returned to thoroughbred racing after four years, and replaced the army-bound future champion, Yves St-Martin at the all-conquering stable of Francois Mathet, famed for his association with the Dupre horses which were to form the foundation in later years of the Aga Khan’s powerful breeding enterprise. A chance liaison led to his marriage to the supremely talented horsewoman, Denyse, a pioneering female in the French racing industry. Later in life, Jean acknowledged her abundant skills of horsemanship, when he said she was “the best horse I ever rode”. They soon decided to take their chances in the United States; it was the beginning of an explosion.

Cruguet had hardly arrived when he was offered the plum position of stable jockey for the celebrated conditioner, Horatio Luro, famed for polishing the talents of one of America’s greatest racehorses and certainly the world’s greatest stallion of all time, Northern Dancer. In 1969 he gave notice of things to come when he replaced Roberto’s rider, Braulio Baeza on the future Hall Of Fame inductee, Arts And Letters, charging home in the time-honoured Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park. In 1971, he was connected with the horse he claimed was the best he’d thrown a leg over thus far, coaxing Hoist The Flag to an unbeaten two and three-year-old campaign. Hoist The Flag suffered a career-ending injury in his preparation for the Wood Memorial in the lead up to the Kentucky Derby; the decision to pack him off to stud at the Hancock’s Claiborne Farm denying the colt a shot at the Triple Crown. That was the beginning of a highly productive career at stud where his progeny included the dual Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe champion, Alleged. The cruelty of fate raised its head again, when Hoist The Flag broke a leg at a time when his stud life was just beginning to blossom.

Little did Cruguet realise that there were even bigger fish to fry in the United States, as he and his wife decided to return to France for the 1972 season; this time he landed with his proverbial “bum-in-the-butter”, as he swept the major Group One races for fillies including the Prix Vermeille and the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches in France, as well as the Champion Stakes in England and wound up second in an abbreviated calendar in the French Jockey’s Championship. In the final session, he strapped his saddle over the back of the champion San San, whom he rode to all her wins, including the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth II Stakes for the storied Angel Penna Snr, bar one, and that was the only one that mattered to a Frenchman. He was prevented by injury from taking the ride in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, and the filly duly obliged for the flamboyant Countess Bathiany.

Jean Cruguet
Career Record 

MAJOR RACING WINS
Travers Stakes	1968
Metropolitan Handicap	1969
Toboggan Handicap	1969
Lawrence Realization Stakes	1969/1970/1975/1978
Cowdin Stakes	1970
Laurel Futurity	1970
Prix Vermeille	1972
Poule d’Essai des Pouliches	1972
Champion Stakes	1973
Manhattan Handicap	1974
Stuyvesant Handicap	1974
Alabama Stakes	1975/1983
Hopeful Stakes	1975/1976
Champagne Stakes	1976
Mother Goose Stakes	1976/1977
Flamingo Stakes	1977
Wood Memorial Stakes	1977/1984
Kentucky Derby	1977
Preakness Stakes	1977
Belmont Stakes	1977
US Triple Crown	1977
Futurity Stakes	1978
Washington DC International Stakes	1978/1993
Canadian International Stakes	1978/1989
Jerome Handicap	1979
Ladies Handicap	1979
Saranac Handicap	1979
Withers Stakes	1979
Blue Grass Stakes	1983
Tremont Stakes	1983
Coaching Club American Oaks	1984
Dwyer Stakes	1984
Knickerbocker Handicap	1985/1986/1988/1992

Cruguet paid us a surprise visit on Sunday, having been advised by any number of Kentucky horseman, that if he was to make the journey to South Africa, he was compelled to visit Summerhill. He tells us that his childhood reminds him constantly that life gives you one chance, and you need to make the best of it while you have your faculties about you. He and Denyse returned to the United States in 1973, and it wasn’t long before the diminutive Frenchman was setting the tracks of America alight again. The crowning moment came in 1976, when he teamed up with Billy Turner to ride the two-year-old colt Seattle Slew, who’d at $17,000 had been pretty much overlooked at the sales. “Slew” cruised to victory in the Champagne Stakes at Belmont Park, crowning an unbeaten season, and claiming the Juvenile champion’s title, as well as putting his hand up as a legitimate contender for the Triple Crown. To put this into perspective, the previous Triple Crown winner was Secretariat in 1971, and before him you’d have to go back to Citation in the 40s. The most recent Triple Crown winner was Affirmed in 1978, and no horse or rider since has been good enough to do it.

Watch Seattle Slew winning the 1977 Kentucky Derby
(Image : Racing Archives - Footage : Awis Dooger)

Seattle Slew warmed up for the Kentucky Derby with facile victories in the Wood Memorial and Flamingo Stakes (both Group Ones) on his way to the Twin Spires at Churchill Downs. His running style was on the lead, and as he took his place in the stalls for the 103^rd renewal of America’s most famous race, he was the only unbeaten aspirant for the Triple Crown in history, never headed for a single yard in any race before. He jumped awkwardly however, and for the first time, he missed the break: within a hundred yards there was just one horse behind him, and Cruguet knew he was in trouble. He shook the reigns for a moment, and surged through the field to be second before the horses entered the clubhouse turn, then proceeded to destroy his field in the closing 600 metres with a spectacular display of power galloping. It was the same story in the Preakness Stakes, and while Cruguet maintains to this day that Seattle Slew’s best trip was at a mile, his class carried him unchallenged to heroism in the Belmont Stakes, to complete the third leg.

In a moment which still occupies the columns of journals more than 35 years down the road, attracting praise and derision in equal measure, with more than 30 yards to the finish line, Cruguet raised himself out of the saddle in triumph in the manner of a gladiator, extending his right arm over his head and saluting jubilantly to an equally jubilant mass numbering well over 150,000. It’s against the rules, we know, but this was a Triple Crown hero in the true sense of the word, and in any event, there was nothing in sight to alter the outcome.

Seattle Slew
Career Record

MAJOR WINS
Champagne Stakes	1976
Wood Memorial Stakes	1977
Flamingo Stakes	1977
Kentucky Derby	1977
Preakness Stakes	1977
Belmont Stakes	1977
Woodward Stakes	1978
Marlboro Cup	1978
Stuyvesant Handicap	1978
AWARDS
US Champion 2-year-old Colt	1976
US Triple Crown Champion	1977
US Champion 3-year-old Colt	1977
American Horse Of The Year	1977
US Champion Older Male Horse	1978
Leading Sire in North America	1984
North American leading Broodmare Sire	1995/1996

While Cruguet was equally effective on both American surfaces, he was without peer on the turf, and a year later he was on board Mac Diarmada, whose victories in the Washington DC International and the Canadian Turf Championship saw him voted Champion Turf horse. The journeyman announced his retirement at 41 in July 1980 to join his wife as a full-time trainer, but the lure of riding had him back in the saddle two years later. His last major Grade One Stakes victory came aboard Hodges Bay, again in the Canadian International at Woodbine. Today he lives in historic Midway just outside Lexington in the vicinity of one of the world’s great stallion stations, Winstar Farm, and the late Sheikh Maktoum al Maktoum’s Gainsborough Stud. It’s no coincidence that the Woodford Bourbon Distillery is in the vicinity. For many years after his retirement, he made guest appearances for organisations such as Old Friends, a retirement and rescue facility for pensioned thoroughbreds. He almost completely disappeared from the public eye when he became the caregiver to his wife Denyse, when bedridden from a stroke in 2003, until she passed on in 2010 at age 80.

At 74 he remains active, working horses daily at the track, and he’s in excellent shape for a man who came off horses more often than he’d care to remember. He puts that down to a determination to make the number one box his home, and the fact that it often involves calculated risks which turned nasty. His pluck, his natural intuitions, his athleticism and dare we say, his upbringing, took him to the winner’s circle countless times, yet you know this is a man who remains comfortable in his own skin, “I crossed the line in front in more than 7000 races, but the truth is, I only won 500 them. Good horses did the rest”.

A couple of hours with Cruguet is riveting, and he speaks easily of the legends that forged the golden years of the game, Penna, Maurice Zilber, (for whom he rode the great Dahlia), Luro, Bill Mott, Woody Stevens and Charlie Whittingham. When you ask him to name the greatest horse of all time, and you toss in the names of Secretariat and Affirmed, he’s unhesitating: “There was none better than Slew. He could do a mile in 1 minute 31, and seven furlongs in 1 minute 20, and there’s no horse in history could go with that”.

If it’s at all possible, Cruguet offers that Slew’s legacy at stud may even have eclipsed his feats at the races. The dominant sire-line of the current era comes courtesy of his son A.P. Indy, and we owe it to Slew and his masterful rider, that we have A.P. Arrow at Summerhill today.

Enquiries :
Linda Norval +27 (0) 33 263 1081
or email linda@summerhill.co.za
www.summerhill.co.za

UNION RAGS SQUEEZES HOME FOR BELMONT STAKES VICTORY

Click above to watch Union Rags winning the Belmont Stakes (G1)…
(Image : Washington Post - Footage : CNBC)

BELMONT STAKES (Grade 1)
Belmont Park, Dirt, 2400m
9 June 2012

It’s been something of a tumultuous sophomore season thus far for Chadds Ford Stable’s Union Rags (USA) (Dixie Union (USA) - Tempo (USA)), but nothing about 150 seconds couldn’t undo. Given a perfect ground-saving ride by John Velazquez, the handsome bay colt needed every inch of the stretch, but fought through an opening inside pacesetting Paynter (Awesome Again) for a neck victory in yesterday’s GI Belmont Stakes.

Fourteen months after their Big Brown (Boundary) was eased in the Belmont Stakes, IEAH Stables signed the ticket on the Dixie Union (Dixieland Band) colt out of Tempo (Gone West) for $145,000 at Fasig-Tipton’s Saratoga Selected Yearling Sale in the summer of 2010. They offered the bay at the same auction house’s Florida Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale, and he attracted the eye of many a horse identifier, including his breeder, who either had seller’s remorse or just wanted a Classic-looking racehorse. Phyllis Wyeth purchased the horse who would become Union Rags on a bid of $390,000 and soon turned him over to Michael Matz, who conditioned Barbaro (Dynaformer) to a dominating victory in the 2006 GI Kentucky Derby. And her re-acquisition did little to disappoint early on.

Union Rags rallied from seventh of nine to take his five-furlong debut over the Delaware main track July 12 before decimating the field by 7 1/4 lengths in a sloppy renewal of the GII Saratoga Special Stakes at Saratoga August 15. He skipped the GI Three Chimneys Hopeful Stakes in September in favor of the GI Champagne Stakes the following month. Sent off the 6-5 chalk that afternoon, Union Rags was patiently ridden and was snookered at a crucial stage for about a quarter of a mile, but streaked away when the daylight came to hand Alpha (Bernardini) a 5 1/4-length defeat. Favored to complete an undefeated campaign in the GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, he sat a disastrous four-wide trip as Hansen (Tapit) set the pace inside. He couldn’t quite get to the pacesetter and settled for second, his Eclipse dreams dashed. He began 2012 with obviously high expectations and suggested he’d be the divisional heavy with an effortless four-length score in the GII Fasig-Tipton Fountain of Youth Stakes February 26. A somewhat disappointing third following a questionable ride in the GI Florida Derby March 31, Union Rags was bounced around at the start of the May 5 GI Kentucky Derby, was taken up nearing the half-mile pole and did exceeding well to finish seventh, 7 1/2 lengths behind I’ll Have Another (Flower Alley). Would there be a ‘Rags-to-Riches’ story in the Belmont?

In an effort to change their luck, connections made a switch from Julien Leparoux to John Velazquez, who won his first Belmont astride the filly Rags to Riches (A.P. Indy) in 2007. Unmolested at the break this time around, Union Rags drifted back to about midfield as upstart and third wagering choice Paynter (Awesome Again) was ridden for speed by Mike Smith, already second aboard Bodemeister (Empire Maker) in the Derby and GI Preakness Stakes. Following an opening quarter mile in a fairly quick :23.72, Paynter was then allowed to cover an internal half-mile in :51 as positions remained largely unchanged with another six furlongs still ahead of them. Velazquez took a look behind him shortly thereafter and asked Union Rags to get just a touch closer to Paynter, who picked up the tempo a bit and covered the mile in 1:38.85. Atigun and Leparoux moved in unison with Union Rags, though forced overland, but loomed a serious threat four wide at the quarter pole. Paynter, looking to give Ahmed Zayat his first Classic victory after several agonizing defeats, hit the eighth pole still going well, but Smith had vacated the fence and left an inviting opening for Union Rags and Velazquez to go through, if good enough. And that Union Rags proved, as he dug in tenaciously and grabbed the long-time leader in the final 40 yards for a hard-earned success.

“We always thought this horse had Triple Crown potential,” a clearly relieved Michael Matz commented. “When we trained him, we gave him four races as a 2-year-old and gave him a rest and had a good plan. He never missed a beat. His first race couldn’t have been any easier. He had trouble in his second race and his third race. I do really think that this horse, when he has a clean trip and can show himself, is one of the best 3-year-olds in this crop. Whether he could have done something against I’ll Have Another, I don’t know, but it sure would have been fun to see.”

Extract from Thoroughbred Daily News

I'LL HAVE ANOTHER SCRATCHED FROM BELMONT STAKES

Click above to watch an SB Nation insert on
I’ll Have Another’s scratching from the 2012 Belmont Stakes
(Image : Bettor - Footage : SB Nation)

BELMONT STAKES (Grade 1)
Belmont Park, Dirt, 2400m
9 June 2012

Word began to circulate just after 11 at Belmont Park on Friday morning. It almost seemed unbelievable. But it was true.

I’ll Have Another, 30 hours from walking into the starting gate for the Belmont Stakes, was going to be scratched. He would not get the chance to join the 11 other 3-year-old colts who had achieved the elusive Triple Crown.

One track worker called home: “Did you hear that? They scratched the horse!” A horseplayer threw his programme and shouted, “Unbelievable.”

Jimmy Crennan of Williston Park, Long Island, who has been to every Belmont since 1980, was set up in the backyard area. “Shock and disappointment,” he said. “It’s like the air comes out of the balloon. I got here today, and I was in such good spirits. I’m sure there will be 30,000 less people here tomorrow now.”

The scratch was extraordinary. Only two previous horses who won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes did not contest the Belmont, and those, Burgoo King in 1932 and Bold Venture in 1936, were well before the Triple Crown matured into mainstream prominence.

I’ll Have Another will not race again, according to his owner, J. Paul Reddam, and his trainer, Doug O’Neill.

The Triple Crown is a demanding series. More than nearly any other trainer, D. Wayne Lukas can speak to that. He has won the Belmont Stakes four times and in 1999 his colt Charismatic broke down and finished third in his effort to capture the Triple Crown. Lukas, 76, will saddle the long shot Optimizer in the Belmont on Saturday.

Standing in the paddock soon after hearing the news, Lukas said: “It’s a part of the game the general public doesn’t realize. For Doug to get this horse this far, he had to basically live with him.” Lukas shook his head. “Boy, it knocks you right to your knees,” he said. “This game is humbling.”

Lukas himself was not in great shape. He had a gash on his left temple, and underneath his sunglasses a vicious shiner surrounded his left eye. On Tuesday, one of his horses kicked his head, sending him to the hospital with a concussion and a pint less blood.

Like O’Neill, Lukas has been in this position. The day before the 1995 Belmont Stakes, he scratched the heavily favored Timber Country because of a fever. The Kentucky Derby favorites A.P. Indy, in 1992, and I Want Revenge, in 2009, were scratched before the race. I’ll Have Another’s scratch also called to mind Majestic Prince, who in 1969 entered the Belmont Stakes undefeated but with a known tendon injury. His trainer Johnny Longden was pressured into running him, and he finished second but never raced again.

O’Neill called I’ll Have Another’s injury a “freakish thing,” but Lukas said the rigors of the Triple Crown had escalated over the years. The fields are larger in Triple Crown races now, and the graded-stakes earnings required to get into the Derby require aggressive campaigning early in a horse’s career.

“The Triple Crown does take more out of horses now,” Lukas said. “It’s much more demanding. Much more.”

Behind Lukas, on benches circling the paddock, early arrivals were turning over the news. Besides disbelief, there was, as befits racetrack habitués, cynicism.

“I think he would have got beat anyway,” said John Rosiak, a Queens resident who said he had been coming to Belmont for 50 years. “He would have come in third or fourth.”

Rosiak said he had 20 bets for the Belmont he had to place for his friends and relatives. But he said none of them had to be changed. I’ll Have Another was nowhere on those tickets.

“They all seem to like Optimizer,” he said.

Hours earlier, there were no outward signs portending the unfortunate turn for I’ll Have Another. A few people milled about at O’Neill’s barn at 9:30 am, and they were in good spirits.

By 12:45, dozens of reporters had formed a bottleneck outside the detention barn where I’ll Have Another and his 11 expected rivals have resided since Wednesday.

Nearby, two security guards stood on the path that leads from the barns to the racetrack. Five precocious 2-year-old colts and one 2-year-old filly bounced on their toes on their way over for the second race. It was a well-bred bunch, and the thought occurred, as it does when races for 2-year-olds are run this time of year, that a classics winner might be among them.

The security guards stoically acknowledged that they had heard the news of I’ll Have Another. One of them said to the other, “At least it will be quieter tomorrow.”

Racetrack life ticked on under a warm sun. But another chance had passed, and the crowning of a 12th Triple Crown champion again looked far away.

Extract from The New York Times

WHY 2012 WON'T BE TWENTY-TWELVE

I’ll Have Another
(Photo : Time)

BELMONT STAKES (Grade 1)
Belmont Park, Dirt, 2400m
9 June 2012

Mick Goss
Summerhill Stud CEOI have always said I am the luckiest man on earth, not only because I wake up next to one of the loveliest ladies in Mooi River, not only because I work with some of the world’s most talented horsemen and I get to work with the noblest creature the good Lord ever created, but because the glass doors of my bedroom afford me a view of Giant’s Castle and the World Heritage Drakensberg Mountains. If you believe Nostradamus, or if you have any faith in the Mayan calendar, 21^st December 2012 is supposed to be the day of the Apocalypse. It’s comforting then, for those of us who live in the vicinity, that the narrative to the movie “2012” suggests there is salvation in the Drakensberg Mountains, for those of us who live nearby. I guess if there’s any spin-off, Hartford House will be doing a roaring trade come December!

In racing terms, it was perhaps prophetic that the ex Summerhill filly Igugu, should have claimed South Africa’s first Triple Tiara for Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Maktoum of the ruling family of Dubai, and for the former electrician, Andre Macdonald, in what was probably the finest statement on the democracy of the turf. Triple Crowns, and by that we mean any Triple Crown, are called by that name not only because they involve three events, but principally for the reverence they hold in the virtual impossibility of winning one. We use the word “impossible” advisedly though, knowing that in South Africa, there has been at least one Triple Crown winner in living memory, and even relatively recent generations can recall Horse Chestnut’s great feat in 1999. While it’s not a matter of distinction to mention it, it was a Summerhill colt, Dangerous Donald, that fell victim to his destructive talents in the final leg, the South African Derby, where he galloped away by an unstoppable 10 lengths.

Which brings us to the purpose of this piece. For the first time in many years, there is a real prospect that both Europe and America could celebrate a Triple Crown hero in 2012, and certainly before 21^st December, when all but a few of us are meant to perish. At least this will give us something to cheer about.

Yes, there have been several aspirants for the title in the United States since Affirmed last achieved the Triple Crown in 1978, but this year’s Kentucky Derby and Preakness ace, I’ll Have Another, looks the real deal, though he won’t have it all his own way, because there are several taking him on who purposely skipped the second leg, so that they could arrive at Belmont Park fresh and ready to fell the giant. The late Summerhill stallion, Coastal, earned his fame (or was it notoriety?) for doing just that to one of the greatest American horses of all time, Spectacular Bid, in the 1979 Belmont Stakes. That epic is renewed this Saturday at 6pm EDT (+- midnight in the old Republic), and I’m sure you will be able to pick it up in the sports news on CNN before you go on bended knee early Sunday. Perhaps we’ll all be celebrating the power of the Lord for delivering us a Triple Crown hero on the historic morning of 10^th June.

Back in the Old Country, Camelot told us in no uncertain terms on Saturday, that he has every chance of becoming Britain’s first Triple Crown victor since Nijinsky in 1970. But he’ll have to wait for September to claim that title, when he takes the trek to Doncaster for the St Leger at the marathon journey of fourteen and a half furlongs. The way he finished off the Investec Derby last Saturday, however, tells us the distance will not be an issue, Deo volente.

And finally, speaking of history, your correspondents this morning will be back from their ‘bosberaad’ by Sunday the 10^th to entertain the first delegation of Chinese racing officials to come to South Africa. Just a month ago, Irish Thoroughbred Marketing announced a €40billion thoroughbred breeding and racing initiative with the Chinese turf authorities, and it seems that as a fellow member of the BRICS countries, South Africa is the alternate destination of choice. If China goes racing, and they race like they mean it, thoroughbred breeding will once again be the only game in town. Mark these words!

ANIMAL KINGDOM REWARDED FOR CLASSIC SUCCESS

Click above to watch Animal Kingdom winning the 2011 Kentucky Derby (Grade 1)
(Image : Yahoo Sports - Footage : Churchill Downs)

ECLIPSE AWARDS
16 January 2012

Never before had the top two Eclipse Award vote getters in the 3-year-old male division been so much like the proverbial apples and oranges comparison, which made voting in 2011 so unique and difficult.

That is how different the two protagonists, Animal Kingdom (USA) (by Leroidesanimaux - Dalicia, by Acatenango) and Caleb’s Posse (USA) (by Posse - Abbey’s Missy, by Slewacide), were from each other. Voters had to decide between a Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) winner and Preakness Stakes (G1) runner-up who didn’t race after June 11 and a one-turn specialist who was just another of the nondescript 3-year-olds on the Derby trail until he had a big breakthrough after being shortened up to one turn.

In the end the voters went classic as Animal Kingdom was honored this week with an Eclipse Award as champion 3-year-old male. He edged Caleb’s Posse by a first-place vote tally of 114 to 111. Shackleford, the Preakness Stakes (Gr1) winner, received 12 first-place votes, followed by Ruler On Ice (5), Stay Thirsty (4), and Uncle Mo (1). There was one abstention in this category.

Owned and bred Team Valor International and trained by Graham Motion, Animal Kingdom was not even considered his owner’s main Derby hopeful in late March when he was entered in the non-graded Rushaway Stakes at Turfway, while Crimson China went in the rich Vinery Racing Spiral Stakes (G3) on the same card. But when Crimson China failed to make the starting field due to lack of earnings, their roles were reversed, with Animal Kingdom having earned slightly more money.

When Animal Kingdom won the Spiral on Polytrack, he thrust himself into the Derby picture and on the first Saturday in May he defeated 18 of the best 3-year-olds in training at the time. Animal Kingdom won the classic by an impressive win by 2 3/4 lengths in his first start ever on dirt, something that had never been achieved before.

A fast-closing second in the Preakness, Animal Kingdom was sent off as the 5-2 favorite for the Belmont Stakes (G1). But a disastrous start, in which he stumbled badly, nearly falling and unseating jockey John Velazquez, cost him all chance. After making a spectacular run on the far turn, he faded to sixth in what was to be his final start of the year, due to a hind leg fracture.

Extract from Blood Horse