Remember when a horse escaped Ellis Park down U.S. 41? Her first career win came Monday
EVANSVILLE, Ind. — It's been nearly a year since a horse bucked her jockey, took off from Ellis Park and sped up U.S. 41 and Interstate 69.
Videos of the peculiar incident last Aug. 21 went viral on social media. The 2-year-old filly, Bold and Bossy, ultimately was scratched from her debut race only to then be involved in a barn fire on the property before dawn the next morning. She experienced minor burns and trainers were worried about smoke inhalation.
That ill-fated weekend resulted in a lengthy recovery. There was doubt she would be interested in training again. Yet, she ultimately made her first career start in July, a third-place finish at Belterra Park in Cincinnati.
Monday marked Bold and Bossy's second start and, at long last, her first victory. She broke her maiden at Thistledown, a track near Cleveland, Ohio, to win by a length over the favorite in the six-furlong event.
"[When the fire happened], I couldn't believe it,” trainer Michael Ann Ewing recently told Thoroughbred Daily News. “I thought that this filly was such a bad-luck horse. But now, I think maybe she's a good-luck horse because she survived. When I look at her now, which is almost a year to when this happened, she's healthy and she has matured and it's really unbelievable."
Bold and Bossy has delivered quite the redemption story from a runaway to the winner's circle as a 3-year-old.
Chad Lindskog is the sports editor of the Courier & Press. You can contact him by email, clindskog@gannett.com, or on Twitter: @chadlindskog.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Racing: Jockey wins first race after horse escape Ellis Park in 2021
