Today is the Barretts Juvenile Stakes at Fairplex, and we have with us a horse who competed in this race just two short years ago.
Good Direction is a beautiful Kentucky-bred gelding who sold in the May 2007 Barretts for $62,000 and then went on to run third and subsequently win a $100,000 maiden race at Del Mar later that summer. He seemed logical choice to run in the Barretts Juvenile, but it was not his day to shine. He ran a surprising eighth, and so began a four race slide that continued until May of 2008 when he was pulled up and walked off at Hollywood Park. It is hard to contemplate what Good Direction may have endured in the months between his dismal performance in the Barrett’s Juvenile in September of 2007 and May of 2008 when he was unable to finish his race, but even now you can see it in his eyes. Good Direction still asks for reassurance.
Good Direction was returned to the races in the fall and this time he appeared at Golden Gate Fields in the lower claiming ranks. His last start was November 8, 2008. On December 2nd he was discovered on a feedlot in Fallon, Nevada, just days away from shipping to Canada for
slaughter.
When we rescued Good Direction last December he did not look like the horse you see today. He was thin and miserable with a bowed tendon and a lacerated leg that miraculously did not cost him his life. Today I'm happy to report that Good Direction has recovered his health and soundness in our care, and that he is a strong, gorgeous mover ready to begin a second career. He is a happy horse today, but he has endured a lot in his short life; surely his best days are before him.
