Off Track Thoroughbreds

Michael Blowen, founder of Old Friends Equine, greets new retiree Eldaafer and the racehorse’s goat peeps, Google and Yahoo.

(Press Release)—Eldaafer, winner of the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Marathon, has been retired to Old Friends. The nine-year-old gelding, who suffered a career-ending suspensory injury last November, arrived at the Thoroughbred retirement facility in Central Kentucky on Monday June 2 along with his inseparable companions, the goats Google and Yahoo.

Bred by Shadwell Farm by A.P. Indy out of multiple Grade 1 winner Habibti (Tabasco Cat), Eldaafer easily lived up to his name, which translates as “the victorious.”

Campaigned by several owners throughout his career, Eldaafer had developed a reputation early on for being very difficult. But he began to live up to his potential when he came under the patient eye of trainer Diane Alvarado.

Eldaafer
Sire: A.P. Indy
Dam: Habibti
Foal date: March 13, 2005
Earnings: $1,031,836; 46 starts
Breeders’ Cup Participation: 1st Breeders’ Cup Marathon—2010In his first start out of her barn Eldaafer earned his first graded stakes win in the 2009 Brooklyn Handicap (G2), going a mile and a half on the dirt. He went on to make his first Breeders’ Cup Marathon appearance later that year at Santa Anita where he finished seventh.

In 2010, a victory on the Polytrack in the Turfway Park Fall Championship (G3) guaranteed the gelding a second chance in the BC Marathon, and that was indeed the charm. He sailed smoothly to a length and three-quarter victory in a tumultuous race that was memorable for the televised post-race row between jockeys Calvin Borel and Javier Castellano because their mounts had bumped and stumbled.

Eldaafer’s starts in the Breeders’ Cup Marathon in 2011 and 2012 were winless, but he continued to earn stakes, including the Carl Hanford Memorial at Delaware Park in 2012 and the Greenwood Cup (G3) at Parx in September 2013.

Eldaafer retired with earnings of $1,031,835 from 13 wins, 3 seconds and 7 thirds in 46 starts.

“Eldaafer is a sturdy throwback to a time when stamina and strength were valued,” said Michael Blowen, president and founder of Old Friends. “We’re very grateful that his connections trust Old Friends to take care of his well-deserved retirement.”

Ava quickly learned sit down on her hind end after clearing a jump, says her trainer Andrew McConnon, pictured above. Photos by Shannon Brinkman

Ava was not a pretty girl.

Standing 15-hands even, the bay mare appeared to have such a sloping, downhill build that some wondered if the poor thing was slightly deformed.

“At one point I measured her, and she was several inches” shorter in the front than in the back, says CANTER Mid Atlantic Executive Director Allie Conrad.

To make matters worse, Ava was having none of it from people. She didn’t want to play, and she appeared so immature in development that the idea of putting a regular-sized rider on her back seemed preposterous, Conrad says.

Her Ways Okay
New name: CMA Special Messenger
Nicknamed: Ava
Sire: Black Mambo
Dam: Inaspecial Way
Foal date: March 27, 2008So out in the field Ava went, where for the first year she was given free rein to do just as she pleased. The following year, in 2012, Conrad returned for the ugly duckling and found that while she had not morphed into a beautiful swan, she had undergone a radical personality change. For the better!

“She was a brand new horse! We started playing with her, and when we started free jumping her, we said, Oh my God! She was extremely powerful as a jumper, knew where her feet were at all times—it was like she born to it,” Conrad says.

And at that point, Ava began to train beautifully. She jumped, she went trail riding, and she worked on the flat. And yet, her downhill build continued to dissuade prospective adopters, until about a year ago, when Michelle Frazier received an email with Ava’s free-jumping video in it.

The avid rider, who had adopted a horse from CANTER Mid Atlantic the previous year, and was searching for another, was blown away.

Suzanne Konefal takes Ava for a test ride in the early days at CANTER Mid Atlantic. Photo by Allie Conrad

“Suzanne Konefal, who starts a lot of Allie’s horses for her, sent me this 10-second clip of her in a jump chute. I sent it to my trainer in Virginia and she looked at it and said, ‘Buy her!’ ”

She tried the horse, clicked with her immediately, and took her on the spot. The full-time lobbyist gave her new mare a show name of Special Messenger, a term that refers to the people who run important material to and from lawmakers.

And with time and expert tutelage of Southern Pines Event rider and trainer Andrew McConnon, the downhill horse became a very correct mover and jumper.

Initially a bit skeptical about how he would fit his 5-foot-11 frame to the mare’s 15.3-hand build, McConnon soon learned Ava had a surprise up her sleeve.

“She was all business and very workmanlike. And although she’s built downhill, she doesn’t travel downhill,” says McConnon, who notes that she measures 15.3 hands in the front and 16.1 hands at the top of her hind end. “She’s quite a good mover, and in fact, I’ve had several friends who, once they saw her go around, were very serious about the mare.”

Ava was passed over time and time again at CANTER Mid Atlantic for being too downhill. Look at her now! Working with Southern Pines Eventer and trainer Andrew McConnon, she is competing beyond expectations. Photo by Shannon Brinkman

In the short time they worked together, Ava quickly moved up from Novice to Training, and is equally impressive on the flat as she is doing dressage or going cross-country.

“She scores really well. She won the dressage Full Gallop (Horse Trials) by about 4 points,” he says, noting that she has learned to carry herself up to jump, and then sit back down before rising up to jump the next fence. “When she came to me, she was like a puzzle with all the correct pieces, and we had to help her put them together.”

McConnon decided early on to let her carry herself where she felt most comfortable. As she grew stronger, it became easier for her to lift her carriage, and get off her forehand, he says.

“She’s moving up a little faster than most horses I train, but she has such a great work ethic, and is so trainable.”

And now the petite little mare so often passed over for her downhill conformation, is a tour de force on the Eventing fields and moving up up up!