HENDERSON, Ky. — A 2-year-old filly got loose before a race at a Kentucky track and ran onto a highway alongside cars before being apprehended Saturday.
The filly named Bold and Bossy got loose on her way to the starting gate at Ellis Park. Jockey Miguel Mena was thrown off.
She then ran off the track and over a levee heading to U.S. 41. Bold and Bossy ran briefly onto Interstate 69 and Veterans Memorial Parkway, with a posse of trainers chasing her in their vehicles. Police and the sheriff’s department also showed up.
“Thank god for all the people who jumped in to go find her because she left town,” her owner-trainer Michael Ann Ewing said from Lexington.
Ewing said Bold and Bossy lost two shoes and a hind hoof knocked some flesh off the heel of a front foot during her escapade, but she wasn’t seriously injured. The trainer said the filly was cramping from dehydration when she was finally corralled by a man and his wife.
Bold and Bossy was wearing her saddle and blinkers to restrict her vision as she galloped down the highway close to vehicles in other lanes. The blinkers probably made it harder to stop her, said Jack Hancock, a trainer who gave chase.
“She couldn’t see anything beside her, so that made it a little worse trying to catch her,” he said. ”I’ve been here all my life and I’ve never seen one to do a run like this, not that far and not that much highway.”
Horses that get loose on a racetrack often run back to the familiar setting of their barn, but Bold and Bossy had shipped in from Lexington to run in a race for the first time.
“She didn’t know where to go home,” Hancock said.
A 2-yAn unraced 2-year-old filly came out of her misadventures relatively unscathed after getting loose before Saturday’s first race at Ellis Park and running onto the highway and interstate before being apprehended.
The filly Bold and Bossy, who had shipped into Ellis Park from owner-trainer Michael Ann Ewing’s Lexington base, got loose in the post parade and unseated jockey Miguel Mena. Bold and Bossy ran off the track and made it over the levee before heading out to U.S. 41N, briefly onto Interstate 69 and then Veterans Memorial Parkway. Among the horsemen following her in their vehicles were trainers Wes Hawley and Jack Hancock, who led in her apprehension.
Bold and Bossy was returned to Ellis Park’s barn area via the horse ambulance.
“This scenario is the last thing you think of when they go to their first race, a 2-year-old baby race,” Ewing, who was not at the race, said from Lexington. “You think of all the silly baby things that are going to go wrong. I didn’t think this. But she’s doing well.
