Read this story Sunday and had to share it. It's heartbreaking, but the truth.
Freedom's Flight was born at one of the best racehorse breeding farms in the world, Claiborne Farms. He was very royally bred, sired by Pulpit, a descendant of Seattle Slew and Secretariat, and his dam was Heather's Flight, a descendant of Nijinsky and Northern Dancer.
On December 22, 2007, Freedom raced for the first time at Calder. He raced only three times at two and then made his first start as a 3-year-old at Gulfstream. Seconds after leaving the gate, his front leg snapped and he continued to run when his jockey failed to notice. Despite the injury, Freedom went on to finish third, but his career as a racehorse was over.
Heinlein had a choice to either euthanize Freedom or send him to Marion Brill, a horse rescuer. Brill started to rehab the still-intact stallion, but the injuries were too daunting. She sold him to a man for $500. [Some horse rescuer, huh?]
It's impossible to tell what happened to Freedom during the next two months, but at some point in time he may have hobbled along on his broken leg as a riding pony for children. [Whoever owned him ought to have their leg broken.] During that time, someone finally gelded him.
Freedom was among several horses spotted on Manual Coto's farm in July 2008. Manual has been known to slaughter cows, pigs, and chickens without the proper permits -- which he was trying to obtain at the time. [Why didn't they bust him for that????] However, Coto denies that he slaughters horses. He bought Freedom a couple of days earlier for only $100.
An SPCA vet diagnosed Freedom's Flight with severe "rain rot," which made him lose most of his hair, bites, wounds, severe rashes, abscesses under his hooves, detoxing from steroids, a fractured right cannon bone, and strangles, a potentially deadly, highly contagious bacterial infection.
Yet sick as he was, "there was something about him," Waggoner said. "I didn't want to leave that horse there. He was still so trusting of people."
She offered Coto $200. He declined the money and allowed her to isolate the horse on his land until she could make other arrangements. Freedom's Flight spent the next five weeks in quarantine, getting treatment for strangles and, finally, his broken leg.
Cuoto adopted him two weeks after he was seized and the two have bonded. Freedom is recovering well now that he has finally received proper veterinary care and was even entered in the contest to be Secretariat in the new movie about him. I don't think he won -- but it would've been AWESOME if he had.
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