Personal Ensign Dies

Unbeaten filly, Personal Ensign, died Thursday in her pasture at Claiborne Farm of natural causes. She was 26 years old.

Personal Ensign

Personal Ensign was a bay filly by Private Account out of Damascus. She began her racing career as a two-year-old in 1986. Her first race was a typical maiden at Belmont where she destroyed the field by almost 13 lengths and kicked off her legendary career. Her next stop was the Frizette Stakes, which she won by only a head. A fracture to her pastern cut her two-year-old season short just before the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies. With five screws inserted into her left hind leg, many people believed her racing career was over.

But Personal Ensign came back at three in September and immediately reasserted herself as a great horse. She returned to racing with two allowance wins at Belmont, the first by 3 3/4 lengths and the second dominating by 7 3/4 lengths. She returned to stakes racing with a win in the G2 Rare Perfume Stakes by 4 3/4 lengths before taking the Beldame Stakes, her longest race yet, by 2 1/4 lengths.

Her best season came at four in 1988. She took the G1 Shuvee Handicap to start the season and never looked back. She dominated the G1 Hempstead Handicap field by seven lengths before leaving her Belmont home track for the first time. She absolutely destroyed the G2 Molly Pitcher Handicap field by 8 lengths at Monmouth. Next she traveled to Saratoga to face down the boys for the first time in the historic G1 Whitney Handicap where she beat Gulch by a length and a half. The history-making mare returned to Belmont for a second attempt at the Beldame. She won by only three-quarters of a length, beating previous Kentucky Derby winner, Winning Colors. Personal Ensign went on to win the Maskette Stakes in her final race before the best of them all.

Personal Ensign's greatest achievement is most likely the 1988 Breeders' Cup Distaff at Churchill Downs. There she took on some of the greatest fillies in the world, including Winning Colors. Winning Colors picked up the lead from right out of the gate, running easily just like she did in the Derby. Personal Ensign stalked the pace, forced a little wide in the first turn. Winning Colors drew away to a three length lead with Personal Ensign trailing by nine lengths in the backstretch. As the field rounded the final turn, Winning Colors was still enjoying an unchallenged lead with Personal Ensign behind by five lengths. As Goodbye Halo moved up, it seemed there would be an upset. But then Personal Ensign kicked hard and came up to win over Winning Colors by a nose in the final sixteenth of a mile in one of the most thrilling stretch finishes in Breeders' Cup history.

Video of the 1988 Breeders' Cup Distaff

Following her Breeders' Cup win, Personal Ensign was retired and became the first major racehorse to retire undefeated since Colin 80 years before. She was named 1988 Champion Older Mare.

It was apparent from Personal Ensign's first foal that she was just as good a broodmare as she was a racehorse. Her first foal, Miner's Mark, went on to become a G1 winner. Her second foal, Our Emblem, also became a G1 winner and sired notable winners such was War Emblem. Her third foal, Traditionally, was also a G1 winner and sire. Perhaps her best foal was a filly named My Flag. If anyone inherited their mother's greatness, it was her. My Flag won 4 G1 races including the 1995 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies in a race that was eerily similar to her mother's Breeders' Cup victory. [If you haven't seen it, WATCH IT. My Flag was one incredible filly. I knew she won and still couldn't believe it!] My Flag also went on to become a great broodmare, producing 2002 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies winner, Storm Flag Flying. This three-generation success in the Breeders' Cup has never been repeated by any mare, and by only one group of stallions. In 1996, Personal Ensign was named Kentucky Broodmare of the Year.

In 1993, Personal Ensign was inducted into the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame.

In September 2006, at the age of 22, Personal Ensign was pensioned at Claiborne Farm after her breeding to Forest Wildcat didn't take. The mare lived out the rest of her days in the pastures with the other Claiborne mares.

RIP Personal Ensign. You will be missed.

Freedom's Flight - From Top Yearling to Rock Bottom

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.

Are synthetic tracks REALLY safer?

Today we're going to talk about synthetic tracks in horse racing -- one of my favorite subjects, but not one to get me started on if you're just talking to me. Ever. Because I could go on for hours about horse racing -- even if it is my favorite sport (please don't hurt me).

But this morning, I checked the news to find that there have been two more accidents at Del Mar. With these two, that makes it eleven. In the last month and a half! Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Polytrack/synthetics supposed to be SAFER? Wasn't that the whole point of these tracks spending all that money to put them in?

Two riders hurt, horse euthanized

I'm not bashing Del Mar's track. In fact, I commend people for actually caring enough to attempt this. But we're barking up the wrong tree here. I'll tell you what I think another day (probably tomorrow unless something comes up).

Horses are dying and these accidents didn't even take place during a race. They took place during morning training.

Are synthetic tracks really safer than conventional dirt? Was it worth the money for these tracks to put them in? What do you think?