A LION-HEARTED HORSE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21978, 13 June 1933, Page 4

A LION-HEARTED HORSE

WINS WITH BROKEN LEG (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, April 28. A remarkable incident occurred at Worcester this week, where, at a jumping meeting, a 13-year-old gelding named Boomlet won the Pitehcroft Selling Hurdles with a broken leg. There were only three runners for the race. Craigendoran, who had given a lot if trouble at the gate, refused at the first hurdle and took First Principle out with him. This left Boomlet to go round it his leisure, am! everything was well mtil Dudley Williams’s mount jumped die hurdle entering the straight. Here-he rapped his off hind leg, but the jockey, inaware of the extent of the damage, ;arried on. Boomlet scrambled over the ast two obstacles and reached the judge’s box on three legs. He was shortly afterwards destroyed. Mr David White, the auctioneer, said diat he could not recollect such a case in lis CO years of racing. While the crowd was still shouting to icelaim the success of the favourite, his njured leg was examined, and when it vas seen that this was broken he was lainlessly destroyed.

The owner was Mr E. E. Large; the trainer,. Mr Ivor Anthony.

At his Wroughton training quarters the horse was known as “ Boomlet the Lionheart.” “ I have known him for 10 years, and I have never met a pluckier horse/’ said the head stable boy. “Only for a 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 legs without much difficulty. “ Boomlet,” he said, “may have been so eager to pass the post—like a human sprinter—that he did not fully realise the pain of his broken leg until he had won.” A few weeks ago Bight Knight, which finished fourth in a race at Mallow, County Cork, jumped three fences and cleared three -water jumps after breaking his back.. Right Knight walked 18 miles back to his stable before -his owner, Mr J. J. Purcill, discovered his injuries.