I have a cool race horse story too. My barn claimed a horse in 1999 named Candid Cookie. We owned him for a week and hadn't even moved him over to our stable when a barn fire at the stampede grounds burned him very badly. There was a picture on the front page of the Sun of me holding him in front of the burning barn. The burning roof collapsed onto his back and burned every inch from his withers to his tail. It was awful and he should have been put down. His new owners were really great people and agreed to treat his injuries instead of putting him down as long as I would tend to his daily needs....he had skin grafts and required daily bandage care and daily treatments for months. So much salve.
He stood in his barn for nine months costing fortunes with literally no chance of ever being ridden again. Eventually he healed and still had a desire to run. He made no money for our barn, never once had another rider on his back but we gave him to a well know chuckwagon team who ran him in four stampedes and kept him in their stable until 2009 when he stepped on a nail and died of an ensuing infection. He had a great life and I'm proud to this day to have known him and cared for him.
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