http://myemail.constantcontact.com/P...id=GoH4Q1Kd-FY
I just wanted to share that our retired race horse Judge's Case passed away yesterday at Old Friends Farm in Georgetown, Ky. I can't thank Michael Blowen and all of the hard working staff at Old Friends enough for taking this horse in, and treating him like a King for the last 8 years of his life. He was special to us, and equally as special to Michael. He got the best care and attention that any horse could have asked for after his days on the race track.
I also want to thank Tom Schell and Lisa Mcfarland for everything they did for the horse both when we claimed and raced him, finding him a home, and eventually helping us get him to Old Friends.
My partner Dan and I were looking for a horse to claim for the Gulfstream meet back in late 2007. Tom calls us one night and mentions that he found a horse he loves for $5000, but he was a 10 year old ( soon to be 11 ). If it would've been 50k the outcome would've been different I am sure, but $5000 was easy enough for us to swallow knowing that we would like to win a race with him, break even, and then eventually be the ones who retired the old warrior.
We drop the claim, the connections are pretty surprised as they just want to be eligible to claim for the rest of the calder meet and surely didn't expect anyone to claim the horse. Well what happens next ? Tom runs him back for 16k and wins his first start for us !!!
He ended up winning once more for us, ran a bunch of nice races. Then shockingly he was claimed from us at tampa for $5000. Most people would've been jumping for joy, however not us. All of us agreed the only thing to do was claim him back so we could be the people who retired him.
The rest of the story is pretty much outlined in the article above, but I thought Judge deserved this write up, as he has given us so much over the years.
Jason