Olympic Eventer Boyd Martin competed OTTB Blackfoot Mystery at Rolex. © Photo by Amber Heintzberger
A 12-year-old off-track Thoroughbred, named this summer to the U.S. Eventing Team for the 2016 Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro, was the subject of a full-page article in today’s Wall Street Journal. (Please click the Journal story here.)
Blackfoot Mystery, an eye-catching, multi-talented Thoroughbred and Boyd Martin, an Olympic three-day Eventer, were among four horse/rider teams named to the U.S. team by the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF).
In the article, Martin describes the “love at first sight” he felt for Blackfoot Mystery, and his Blackfoot Mystery Syndication, which reportedly consists of 13 members who raised $300,000 to purchase the OTTB, according to the Wall Street Journal.In the article, he acknowledges that the “really, really top horses are just really expensive.”
Blackfoot Mystery
Sire: Out of Place
Dam: True Mystery, by Proud Truth
Foal date: April 30, 2004Martin and Blackfoot Mystery were among Olympic hopefuls who had the opportunity to qualify at one of 22 events, beginning with Rolex 2015 and concluding with Bromont and Gramham, according an earlier press release by the USEF announcing Martin and Blackfoot had made the cut.
Stating in an earlier interview with Off Track Thoroughbreds.com that he was pleased and “very thankful” to be chosen for the team, Boyd noted that Blackfoot was a true representation of the great American Thoroughbred.
Boyd and Blackfoot pose for a photo shortly after the Olympic rider acquired the talented Thoroughbred. Photo courtesy Boyd Martin
Martin adds, “I think it’s a great story and he’s gotten a lot of attention because there are a lot of horses out there with a background just like Red’s.” “I think it’s great that Blackfoot Mystery is a US OTTB—it really shows that American Thoroughbreds have a place at the top of the sport,” Martin states in an email. “To be perfectly honest, I didn’t pick Red for his breeding – I was more drawn to his character, movement and athleticism, and it just so happened that he’s an American OTTB, and has a great story going through a horse adoption program.”
Martin told Off Track Thoroughbreds.com in an earlier interview that Blackfoot Mystery possessed a rare combination of skills and traits.
“He’s very sound and very good at the dressage,” Martin said in the earlier interview, noting that finding a horse who has the movement for dressage, the stamina for cross-country, and the aptitude for show jumping is what keeps him looking toward the Thoroughbreds for that rare trifecta possessed by Blackfoot Mystery.
In an earlier interview Steuart Pittman, founder of the Retired Racehorse Project, said he was thrilled to see an off-track Thoroughbred compete at the Olympics.
“Boyd Martin could have put a syndicate together to buy any event horse in the world that he believed in. People in the sport know that. When his search brought him to an American Thoroughbred ex-racehorse that sent a great message.” — Please visit the Wall Street Journal’s full-page coverage of Boyd Martin and Blackfoot Mystery in the Aug. 1, 2016 edition: http://www.wsj.com/articles/buying-shares-in-an-olympic-dream-1470007756.
Most excellent! Happy to see an OTTB not in the kill pen. We need a lot more people to give these horses a second chance/career.
Huge props to horse and rider!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Very best to Boyd Martin and Blackfoot, an extremely lucky OTTB.