Ex-Aidan O’Brien Royal Ascot winner rescued in US from ‘cold mud pen waiting to die’
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An ex-Aidan O’Brien-trained Royal Ascot winner has been rescued after being discovered in an emaciated state on a farm in the US. The 12-year-old War Envoy raced 12 times for the Ballydoyle trainer when owned by the Coolmore partners and Joseph Allen, winning the Britannia Stakes at Ascot in 2015.
He ran his last race for the stable later that year at the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar, where he finished last in the Dirt Mile at Keeneland. He stayed in the US where he subsequently raced for Wesley Ward before being sold at auction in 2016 for £120,000, moving to trainers Shelbe Ruis, Craig Dollase and finally Mick Ruis, for whom he ran his last race for Ruis Racing at Santa Anita in 2017.
Now seven years later he has been found on a farm in Kentucky in a poor physical condition and taken into care. War Envoy, who appears to have had a stallion career after racing, is now safe in the hands of the Kentucky Humane Society Equine CARE [Connect, Assist, Rescue, Educate] in Simpsonville, a charity dedicated to helping horses in crisis and transition.
The horses the charity has taken in are often eventually able to have new careers and homes, but that time could be some way off for War Envoy. A post on Facebook, appealing for donations , said: “How a horse can go from a Breeders’ Cup entry, flying around from the US to Ireland and England and back several times and receiving the best of care…to this situation starving in a cold mud pen waiting to die, will never cease to be tragic and baffling.
