Despite some recent set backs Blackie still looks forward to visits from his fans #StayStrongBlackie – at New Bolton Center


While summertime in Saratoga is a busy stretch for New York’s equine population, Grade 1 winner The Cliff’s Edge is taking it easy nearby as a pensioner.
The 16-year-old son of Gulch spends his days in his spacious indoor/outdoor paddock near the stallion barn at McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where his biggest concerns during a recent visit appeared to be finding the right spot in his field to get dusty, and then the right patch of grass for a snack.
The Cliff’s Edge arrived at his current residence for the 2015 breeding season and was pensioned the following year. He last stood for an advertised fee of $2,500, and was gelded over the past winter.
“We wanted to get him where we could just get him out of the stud barn, turn him out and let him have a retirement,” said farm owner Joe McMahon. “He’s a great turnout horse. He’s a very kind horse. He’s always been a nice horse to have around.”
In 2013, readers fell in love with miracle baby Magna Fortuna, the subject of a profile we published when the gelding went into training. The son of Magna Graduate was rescued in utero when the Illinois Equine Humane Center (IEHC) pulled his dam, Silver Option, from a kill pen for $300. Gail Vacca, president and founder of the IEHC, remembers thinking the mare was in such bad shape that she wouldn't survive the trip to Canada. Her plan had been to humanely euthanize Silver Option, who was suffering from laminitis. It was only afterward she discovered Silver Option was pregnant and that the previous owner believed she had lost the foal early in her pregnancy.
Vacca decided the resulting foal, dubbed Magna Fortuna and fondly known as “Taxi” could be an ambassador for responsible Thoroughbred ownership and aftercare, so she formed an ownership group of 15 partners to send him to the races. Taxi won twice on the Illinois circuit, in maiden special and allowance company for trainer Michele Boyce.
To Mid-Atlantic racegoers, he was a familiar sight. From early 1998 until October 2005, La Reine’s Terms went to the post 40 times in the recognizable black and gold silks of his owners/breeders, Howard and Sondra Bender. He ended up in the winner’s circle on 16 of those occasions, and by the time he headed into his well-earned retirement, he won 10 stakes, was graded stakes-placed and had bankrolled $804,591.
But as his trainer Larry Murray tells it, he almost didn’t make it to the races at all. In fact, he was nearly euthanized as a yearling. Foaled at the Benders’ Glade Valley Farm in Frederick, Md., in 1995, the son of Private Terms was produced from Sondra Bender and Anderson Fowler’s graded stakes winner La Reine Elaine (King’s Bishop—Silver Betsy, by Nearctic).
BaroqueAgain1 wrote:A nice update on a horse with one of the cutest names out there - Notacatbutallama.![]()
https://www.paulickreport.com/features/ ... n-waiting/
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