Dream Alliance - race horse

[Lisa in Plymouth]

Did anyone see this on the news? What a great result ;D

I'm not a fan of racing and didn't catch the whole story but I think he's owned by a group of people from a small village in wales. He is kept on an allotment with his full younger brother (not sure if he's home trained) and has just won quite a big race (missed which race as I was feeding dogs and only half listening to tv). The odds on him today were 33 to 1 so those that bet on him did well. The lady that bred him (and still part owns him) was so chuffed, and the full brother looks very nice indeed. They also have a retirement fund set up for when he retires. I doubt his living arrangements are the most conventional way of keeping racehorses but it's nice for the dedicated team behind him to have such a good result. He'd had injury problems before so I understood it was quite something for him to win today.

Hope he has a safe and sucessful future.

[boffin325]

he won the welsh national..... great result and a good story
news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/horse_racing/8433158.stm

[Dragonmaster]

It was the Welsh Grand National at Chepstow. I saw it on Welsh news. Good win, horse looked good and owners over the moon!
Apparently horse had sustained serious injury last year and was nearly PTS, but they raised £3000 for stem cell treatment (what might that be for I wonder?) and he came good.
Sounds like a story for a film.

[lizpurlo]

Yes - great race and fantastic result - it's so lovely when a horse owned by ordinary people beats horses owned by multi-millionaires! I heard a bit of an interview on 5Live this morn with one of the co-owners - apparently they'd banked all the horse's winnings (and he was second to Denman in the '07 Hennessy, I believe) - so that when they were faced with a choice between a huge vet bill or premature retirement/pts they had the money to give him a chance. So a really well deserved win.

The horse is trained by Philip Hobbs, a top professional trainer in Somerset - he's a proper old fashioned West Country horseman (his wife Sarah is the daughter of the legendary Bertie Hill) and great bloke. He was obviously thrilled yesterday to have won such a big race for his sporting bunch of owners!

Agree, Dragonmaster, sounds like a film idea there...

[janej55uk]

There is more to the story than that though: The lady who bread him was working in the local club when the locals were saying how cool it would be to own a race horse, so she got a mare and bread them one. They put half of his winnings aside in a fund for him. In 2008 he was leading at the last hurdle at aintree when he struck into himself, the jocky stoped him imediatly and would not let the course vet put him down as he knew liverpool uni could fix his severed tendon. He had stem cell treatment to regrow the tendon and after scans showing it is stronger than ever he is back racing!

[welly]

I hadn't heard this, but what a great story. These things sometimes happen in racing.
If he had finished 2nd to Denman then he was obviously a good horse and worth getting going again.

In a way this could only be a racing story, as people have a dream of owning a prize-winning horse and will put in the time and finance to bringing a good horse back from injury. A horse doing another job would probably be retired to the field, or used as a hack.

The news that the stem cell treatment worked is very good news too, pretty exciting really. A cure for tendon injuries is something that the horseworld has been looking for from forever.

[iceberg]

That is a lovely story, and yes well worthy of a film!