A Horse named
PATCH By: Claudia L. Ruiz
When life gives you lemons,
T
make lemonade...
hroughout the course of life, you are bound to encounter adversity that will challenge who you are and how you see the world. You cannot change the inevitable, but you can choose how you react to it and the attitude you take towards it. Meet Patch: a three-year-old son of Union Rags and Windyindy, by A.P. Indy, bred and owned by Calumet Farm. Patch, pictured on the left with trainer Todd Pletcher at Palm Beach Downs, lost his left eye when he was just two-years-old. But he never let that get in the way of living his life, and on April 1, he secured himself a spot in this year’s Kentucky Derby by finishing second to Girvin in the Gr.2 Louisiana Derby. It all started one morning, last June, when Pletcher arrived at the barn and found the colt with his left eye closed, tearing heavily. Veterinarian Bill Yarbrough was called out to examine the eye and found no scrapes or scratches, or any signs of trauma. He applied ointment and administered anti-inflammatories. When the eye did not respond, a fluorescein eye stain was performed to rule out foreign bodies and possible damage to the cornea. “Essentially, what he had was inflammation of the globe of the eye,” Pletcher said, adding that the stain returned no real answers. The globe of the eye, or bulbus oculi, is the eyeball apart from its appendages. A hollow structure, it is composed of a wall enclosing a cavity filled with fluid with three coats: the sclera, choroid, and the retina. Patch was treated at the barn for one week with no success before being admitted to Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Saratoga Springs, NY, where further, more aggressive treatment was attempted. Over the course of yet another week, veterinarians tried everything, but in the end were unable to save his eye. Travis Tull, DVM, Dipl. ACVS, performed the surgery, and after two days of recovering, Patch was sent to Pletcher’s father’s training facility in Ocala, FL. “I sent him to Ocala to give him some time to adjust and to see how he adapted to training with just one eye.” A couple of weeks later, Pletcher received a call from his father with some good news. Patch was seemingly unfazed, as if nothing had hap-
pened, and was training very well. By early September 2016, just two-and-a-half months after surgery, the bay colt rejoined Pletcher’s stable and resumed normal training at Palm Beach Downs. Four months later, he finished second in his debut race, and one month after that returned to break his maiden by 1 ¾ lengths at Gulfstream Park with jockey John Velazquez. “At the time, it was heartbreaking for me to watch him lose the eye,” Pletcher said. “Most of the time this sort of thing will happen to a horse before training is started. By the time they get to the track, they’re pretty used to it. It’s much harder for a twoyear-old, halfway into training, to adjust.” However, Patch continued to work like a total professional; you would never think he was missing an eye from watching him on the track or in the barn. Even Velazquez was impressed by how quickly he adapted. “I worked against him one morning before his first race. I was on another horse and had him tight on the rail, but it didn’t bother him and he ended up beating me. He hasn’t let losing his eye affect him.” This is not the first time Todd Pletcher has had a horse of this type in the Kentucky Derby. Blind in his left eye, which was atrophied, but still in place, Pollard’s Vision ran in the Derby of 2004. But, unlike Patch, he lost his sight when he was much younger and had lived with it for pretty much his whole life. In an interesting twist, the Union Rags colt had yet to be named at the time that he developed the ailment in his left eye. Calumet Farm was aware of it, but at that point the outlook was still hopeful. He was named Patch before he lost his eye. You can count his starts on one hand and still have fingers to spare, but this is a horse that does not mind running in tight quarters, and coming off a maiden win finished second to the top ranked horse on the Derby leaderboard. “I really think his mindset is the reason behind everything he has accomplished. His willingness, intelligence and calm nature; he is just such a remarkable horse.” – Todd Pletcher Like him on the track or not, Patch’s ability to overcome adversity is admirable. Not only does it humanize him, it also goes to show how far the right attitude will take you in life. Thoroughbred Today
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