Future Kings ribbons at his first show, months after being plucked from the slaughter pipeline.
Future Kings, an Irish bred gelding who sold for $200,000 in his prime, but who landed in the slaughter pipeline at age 15, ribboned at his first horse show last month.
Ridden by Grace Clairmont at the Thoroughly Thoroughbred Horse Shows May 31, the beautiful bay won two jumps pleasure classes, reports his proud new owner, Marilyn Lee of Sherwood Farms, Ontario. No stranger to the joys of OTTBs, Sherwood is the owner of Prodigioso the Everglades Horse, a Thoroughbred dumped in the Everglades of Florida and left to the fates. (Please see Prodigioso’s story here).
Buoyed by the success she and her daughter Robin Hannah-Carlton have had with Prodigioso, the pair stepped up and offered Future Kings a home earlier this year after the bay grandson of 1979 Champion U.S. Sprinter Star de Naskra was rescued from the slaughter pipeline.
Marlene Murray of R.A.C.E. Fund, Gail Hirt of Beyond the Roses, and Thoroughbred advocate John Murrell all stepped up and purchased Future Kings from a meat buyer.
Says Lee, “My daughter Robin and I both happened to be looking at Facebook and we both found King’s picture. We weren’t looking at him together, but we both recognized how cute he is. We knew nothing about his story, and there’s still quite a bit of mystery about him. He hasn’t raced since his last race at Thistledown in 2006 and we have no idea where he’s been, or how he wound up there.”
But now he is home, a prized treasure in her Ontario stable.
Thank you for saving him, he’s awesome.
From the kill pen to ribbons. Future King is a champion in so many ways. So proud of him but most importantly that he is still alive today and did not go down the horrible road to slaughter. He is one nice horse and so intelligent. Go King.