Wild Again is gone.
December 6th 2008 05:26
Wild Again, one of the three horses in the slam-bang finish to the first ever Breeders Cup Classic, has been euthanized at age 28. Sad. Like Northern Dancer a scion of the Nearctic line; his sire Icecapade was a half-brother to Ruffian.
Wild Again was out of *Khaled mare, Bushel-n-Peck. Remember *Khaled? Rex Ellsworth, breeder of Swaps, was unsuccessful in buying *Nasrullah from HH The Aga Khan; so Ellsworth bought *Khaled to stand at stud at his dry and dusty ranch in Chino.
Chino was about as far removed, appearance-wise, from the Irish countryside or the verdant pastures of Kentucky as it was possible to go. While a student at Cal Poly Pomona in the mid-1970's, I went with classmates to visit the Ellsworth ranch in Chino. This was about a year before the Humane Society was called in to rescue the mares at the ranch.
God knows Ellsworth and Mesh Tenney proved to the world that world-class racehorses could be produced on dry-lot pastures in an environment that might charitably be called "utilitarian." Ellsworth had his own feed mill on the premises, and obviously was successful at balancing rations so that horses raised in Chino grew strong and athletic. But over time he ran into financial difficulties, and purportedly had problems with alcoholism. For whatever reason, the horses that remained on the ranch weren't fed enough and fell into conditions of emaciation. Slow starvation, in fact.
My roommate at the time, like me an Animal Science major, made the comment that Ellsworth could have sold half the horses and fed the other half on the proceeds. Very good point.
Website with some interesting photos and memories about Ellsworth, *Khaled and the Chino ranch: Really Long Link
It used to be that a lot of the Cal-bred horses you'd see coming to the races in the 70's had Ellsworth breeding, one way or another. *Khaled sired Linmold, who sired some good Cal-breds. Ellsworth-breds made a mark on the California racing world, but that had all pretty much petered out by the time I visited the ranch.
Ellswoth was absolutely a man who knew his horses. Nobody breeds and raises the kind of horses he bred and raised unless he knows what he's doing. And through the influence that Wild Again has had on the breed, Ellsworth's legacy as iimporter of *Khaled will continue.
Wild Again was out of *Khaled mare, Bushel-n-Peck. Remember *Khaled? Rex Ellsworth, breeder of Swaps, was unsuccessful in buying *Nasrullah from HH The Aga Khan; so Ellsworth bought *Khaled to stand at stud at his dry and dusty ranch in Chino.
Chino was about as far removed, appearance-wise, from the Irish countryside or the verdant pastures of Kentucky as it was possible to go. While a student at Cal Poly Pomona in the mid-1970's, I went with classmates to visit the Ellsworth ranch in Chino. This was about a year before the Humane Society was called in to rescue the mares at the ranch.
God knows Ellsworth and Mesh Tenney proved to the world that world-class racehorses could be produced on dry-lot pastures in an environment that might charitably be called "utilitarian." Ellsworth had his own feed mill on the premises, and obviously was successful at balancing rations so that horses raised in Chino grew strong and athletic. But over time he ran into financial difficulties, and purportedly had problems with alcoholism. For whatever reason, the horses that remained on the ranch weren't fed enough and fell into conditions of emaciation. Slow starvation, in fact.
My roommate at the time, like me an Animal Science major, made the comment that Ellsworth could have sold half the horses and fed the other half on the proceeds. Very good point.
Website with some interesting photos and memories about Ellsworth, *Khaled and the Chino ranch: Really Long Link
It used to be that a lot of the Cal-bred horses you'd see coming to the races in the 70's had Ellsworth breeding, one way or another. *Khaled sired Linmold, who sired some good Cal-breds. Ellsworth-breds made a mark on the California racing world, but that had all pretty much petered out by the time I visited the ranch.
Ellswoth was absolutely a man who knew his horses. Nobody breeds and raises the kind of horses he bred and raised unless he knows what he's doing. And through the influence that Wild Again has had on the breed, Ellsworth's legacy as iimporter of *Khaled will continue.
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