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Horse escapes before first race, runs on Kentucky highway

By Jared Leone, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
By Jared Leone, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

A filly about to run her first race Saturday escaped the track and onto a Kentucky highway, running and ran alongside traffic before being captured.

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Bold and Bossy bucked her rider and got loose while on her way to the starting gate at Ellis Park. Jockey Miguel Mena was thrown off her.

The horse then ran over a levee heading to U.S. 41 before briefly getting onto Interstate 69 and the Veterans Memorial Parkway. A group of trainers, police and sheriff’s deputies chased the horse, which was still wearing blinders, for nearly 30 minutes before she was corralled by a man and his wife.

“She couldn’t see anything beside her, so that made it a little worse trying to catch her,” said Jack Hancock, a trainer who chased after her. “I’ve been here all my life and I’ve never seen one to do a run like this, not that far and not that much highway.”

Bold and Bossy lost two shoes and a hind hoof scraped some flesh from a front foot during her run, but otherwise she was not injured. She was cramping from dehydration when she was captured.

“Just by the grace of God, she was not hit,” Bold and Bossy’s owner Michael Ann Ewing told The Washington Post. “Thank God she was not hurt or caused someone else to be severely injured or killed.”

Horses that escape typically run back to an area of familiarity but Bold and Bossy was brought in from Lexington.

“She didn’t know where to go home,” Hancock said.

Ewing decided that after getting captured, Bold and Bossy would be kept overnight in the receiving barn at Ellis Park while she was treated and calmed down. However, at 5 a.m. that barn burned down. All seven horses inside it were able to get out, including Bold and Bossy.

The horse was taken to a veterinarian clinic for evaluation.

“They’re assessing her lungs and putting more fluids into her and they’re going to evaluate the burns. It’s really hard to tell how bad they are going to be. You could see dimpling under the cream,” Ewing told the Post. “They’ll just do everything they can for her for a couple of days, then we’ll reassess and see what the game plan is.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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