Drivers on a Kentucky Highway could not believe their eyes when they saw a racehorse galloping past their vehicles over the weekend.
According to reports, the two-year-old filly, Bold and Bossy, was poised to make her racing debut at the Ellis Park Racing & Gaming racetrack on Saturday. Before she could complete a lap around the track she threw off her jockey, Miguel Mena, and dashed through an exit onto Interstate 69. One driver, Cullen Stanley, witnessed the spectacle and filmed it.
"I first saw something about three hundred yards down the road moving fast towards me that obviously wasn’t a vehicle," Stanley told Fox News.
"As it got closer it looked like a horse but my brain was telling me that it couldn’t be [a] horse because I’m on an interstate highway. When it was about 50 yards away there was no more denying that a racehorse was heading right toward my car. Luckily she dodged my car and kept on running. Craziest thing I’ve ever seen in real life or a dream."
The horse was reportedly on the loose for at least 30 minutes. Bold and Bossy’s owner, Michael Ann Ewing, explained to The Washington Post that eventually "all the muscles in her body just tucked up" in cramps from dehydration. Several people, including a veterinarian and equine ambulance, were in pursuit and they were eventually able to catch the horse, sedate her and give her fluids.
Ewing and the horse's trainer, Kelsey Wallace, made the call to keep Bold and Bossy overnight at an Ellis Park receiving barn. But the barn caught fire early Sunday morning, causing the animal to suffer burns on her neck and withers.
An "unknown hero" saved her and six other horses, Ewing said. Now Bold and Bossy is receiving treatment at the Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, where vets are "assessing her lungs and putting more fluids into her and they’re going to evaluate the burns," Ewing said. "It’s really hard to tell how bad they are going to be. You could see dimpling under the cream."
Ewing explained that Bold and Bossy will be under the care of a vet until she has healed and is comfortable.
"I think she’s just exhausted. It’s no exaggeration, she looked like she’d lost 200 pounds," Ewing added. "She was still all tucked up and sweet as pie."
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Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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