LION-HEARTED HORSE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 130, 5 June 1933, Page 6

LION-HEARTED HORSE

WINS WITH BROKEN LEG

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON", April 28. A remarkable incident, occurred at Worcester this week,-:, where, at 'a- jumping meeting, a thirteen-year-old gelding named Boomlet won the Piteheroft Selling Hurdles with a""broken leg. '• ■": ' '" There were only three runners for the race. Craigendoran, who had given a lot of trouble at the gate, refused at the first hurdle and took First Principle out with him. This left Boomlet to go.round at his leisure, and everything was well until Dudley Williams's mount jumped the hurdle entering the straight. Here he rapped his off hind leg, but the jockey, unaware of the extent of the damage, carried on. Boomlet scrambled over the last two obstacles and reached the judge's ! box on three legs. He was shortly afterwards destroyed. , ... ; Mr.' David White,, the auctioneer, said that he.' could not recollect such a .case in his sixty years of racing. , . ' While the crowd was still shouting.to acclaim the'success: of the favourite,. hia injured leg was examined, and when .it was seen "that this was broken he was painlessly destroyed. ' |. The owner was' Mr. E^ E. Large,':' and the trainer Ivor, Anthony. At his Wroughton training quarters the horse was known as "Boomlet -the Lionheart." '"I'havD known him for : ten. years, and I have never, met a pluckier; horse," said the Read stable boy. ; "Only for-a I second did. Boomlet hesitate when his hind leg snapped, then with.head up he went bravely on to victory." "He was as game as the devil," was the tribute paid by Mr. Anthony. It is the view of a veterinary surgeon that Boomlet may have been carried forward by his momentum, or 'may have kept going on his three logs without much difficulty. "Boomlet," he said, "may have been so eager to pass the post—like >\ human sprinter—that he did not fully realise the pain !6f his broken leg • until he had won." ', ~ , • • "A few weeks" ago Right' Knight;: who finished fourth in a race 'Tat ' ■.■ M,allow, County Cork, jumped three fences and cleared three water jumps after breaking his back. Eight Knight walked eighteen miles back to his stable before his owner, Mr. J. J. Purcill, discovered his .injuries, '. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. "Specs" (LyalF Bay).—C, £1 10s* and £ 1 3s. . -■ ■ ■ ■ '•■■■ "Otaki" (i-lutt).—E,.£lo 12s and £4 17s.