By Duane Ranger
Multiple Group winning gelding Georgetown – the older brother of the promising 3-year-old Clevedon pacer Motown – has died in Pennsylvania.
The 11-year-old Washington VC gelding, who won almost $750,000 in stakes in both hemispheres, was marked to be transported from Shippensburg, a borough in the state of Pennsylvania, to his slaughter-yard in Canada.
But the former Ken Barron trained and driven Georgetown didn’t make it to the slaughter yards.
After funds were raised by the USA’s Standardbred Retirement Foundation (SRF)to get him to a vet he was sadly euthanized with a very badly broke elbow on Saturday.
Prior to that he was left to die a slow death for days on end with his broken elbow in his kill pen in the north-east of the USA until funds were raised to have him treated.
“Publicity and kind hearts is what we hope for but sadly he was too injured and neglected to persevere with once we got him to the vets,” said Standardbred Station‘s Chrissy Daniels, who was speaking on behalf of SRF.
“We weren’t originally able to get him out due to costs. We also just reached his former Australian-based trainer at the time – Michael Langdon, who wants to help get him out of there.
“He tried to help us rescue his old friend. We raised US$650 to bail him out and then there were transport costs to the vet clinic at the SRF (Standardbred Retirement Foundation) .
“The situation is terrible here for off-the-track horses,” she added. Georgetown won 12 off his 72 starts and placed 13 times and $534,190 in New Zealand and Australia between 2007 and 2011.
After being exported from New Zealand to Australia on November 30, 2010 he then won two of his 20 starts across the Tasman. That was between December 2010 to November 2011.
He was then victorious in 10 of his 77 starts in the USA. He also placed 20 times and won a further US$162,468. He also went a 1:50.0 mile.
His New Zealand highlights came at Auckland’s Alexandra Park. On December 21, 2007 Georgetown won the Group Two $70,000 Elsu 3yo Classic.
Ten days later Georgetown cleaned up in the Listed $200,000 PG Wrightson Yearling Sales Open. But his only Group One victory came at Brisbane’s Albion Park on July 23, 2011.
That night he downed the great Black’s A Fake to nail the $100,000 Winter Cup. Earlier that season he was also triumphant in the $25,000 Terang Cup at Terang (Victoria) on February 12, 2011.
The night he won the Yearling Sales Open Georgetown was a much wanted $3 favourite. Now New York harness racing owner Ken Terpenning says no-one gives a goat’s hair about the death-row based bay.
“With more than a half million in earnings, Georgetown surely doesn’t deserve to die in a kill pen. “It is pure torture and he should at least have the dignity to die in peace and pain-free.
I was hoping he could have been saved and rehabilitated,” Tarpenning said of the horse dubbed Georgetown N in the USA.
“They ended up getting him out and got him to a vet and his elbow was actually broken and they had to put him down humanely. In the end his death was dignified and he is now pain free, but things like this should not come to be.
How do horses like this end up in the slaughter pipeline to begin with? It needs to stop!” he added. Georgetown is the oldest son of the un-raced 17-year-old Walton Hanover mare, Touch Of Grace.
The Smolenski family bred mare has left seven foals – the fifth of which is the John and Josh Dickie trained Motown.
That son of Bettor’s Delight has so far won three of his five starts and just over $22,000. The smart Sires Stakes-bound (Addington NZ Cup Day) gelding is unbeaten in two starts this season.
The broodmare has also left breeders Dennis Bennett and Mrs Linda Joyce a 2-year-old Bettor’s Delight colt named Denstown and an unregistered yearling Changeover filly.
Georgetown never had a full brother or sister. The man who drove and trained Georgetown in his only Group One victory – Michael Langdon, said he would never forget the night his pacer downed four-times Interdominion champion Black’s A Fake.
Here’s what the former Kiwi horseman had to say about Georgetown after what her termed a ‘moment in time’.
“I always believed in Georgetown and maybe now on hindsight I campaigned him a bit hard to get into the Hunter Cup when I first got him, but I know him now and I’ve always believed in the horse – from the moment he came over from New Zealand.
“I knew he would eventually crack a bigger race. It might not have been a high class Cup field but there were a few millionaires in the race and I knew he was peaking for this,’’ Langdon said at the time.
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