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G.Ch. (ARS) Peintre Celebre his sire
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Celan is the first colt by my stallion Peintre Celebre and definately won't be the last..... In 99' Celan was the highpoint Woodbine 3 yr old colt after winning his first Gr. 1 T Championship with a runaway finish. He ran in the Preakness and finished in the middle of the pack, and ran in the Belmont and did awful.... In the training session he was in the day before the race, he was burning up the track and we knew he was ready to run...... My trainer and I watched the race from the grandstands and we were shocked at his lackluster performance..... My trainer began to leave has the entered the homestretch to collect him after the race, and after they crossed the wire, I made my way to the stands.... My fiance was riding him and was completely baffled about what happened. Then as he made his way towards the gap, Celan begin to flatten his ears towards any horse and person that came near him and was rearing and kicking, which is totally uncharacteristic of him... Normally his is the perfect gentleman, but my fiance had his hands full trying to calm the colt down.... My trainer was able to get a lead shank on his bridle trying to get some control over him..... By the time I got there I was in shock over his behavior.... He had never acted like this, not even when he was a youngster, he was always well behaved... I finally got another lead shank on him and we kept him still till my finace could dismount and go weigh in. As my trainer and I lead Celan towards the barns so we could wash him down, he tried to lunge with us, but we got him back under control and he was a handful even when we were attempting to wash him off. He was nipping at the hose, half rearing and bucking even in crossties..... After we got him back to SSF and in his stall, he was still not setteling down and my trainer and I went back to watch the tape of the race, to see if he had been cut off or accidentally hit by a whip, but nothing turned up.... The next day I went out to check on him and whistled for him to come to me, but I got no response.... When I got to his stall, he was lying on his side and could barely move.... I whipped out the cell phone and called the SSF vet and my trainer and told them what was happenning. They both arrived simoultaneously and the vet began to draw blood to analyze and run tests on... A few days later, all the questions I had in my head were answered....... I found out why he ran a horrible race in the Belmont was Satan's horse coming off the track... Someone had poisoned him before the race with a small dose of rat poison and a amount of Morphine that could have been lethal if I had not found him as soon as I did.
After the test results came back, I called Belmont Park and told them about what happened and the told me they would begin questioning those who were near Celan's stall or shedrow. After talking to the grooms and stablehands at Belmont, they had seen a tall dark man hanging around his stall, but he was the same heaight and complexion as my fiance and they thought it was my fiance checking on him since he was riding him in the race. Those who were questioned told the police as much as they knew about what the man looked like and a week later I got a phone call that they had a possible suspect in custody and askes me to fly out to NY. I told them I would be there as soon as I could, and called the airport and got a flight on the next one to NY. I packed a few things and took a picture of Celan, all his papers and a couple other things and had my finace take me to the airport.. I got to NY and got a rental car and headed straight to the part. The guards already knew I was coming and let me in and directed me to the stewards office... The police were there and the stewards of the track where there and the prime suspect sitting there as I walked through the soor. I sat down and they began to ask the man how he knew Celan and he told them that I suposedly gave him to him as a gift to a friend. I was apalled.... The police asked me if this was true and I told them absolutely not... They asked me if I even knew the man, and I told them I did not, and that I had never even sold Celan... They asked me if I brought his papers and I replied that I had and gave them to the police and the stewards. The asked the man if he had any papers and he handed them a set. They typed the tatoo numbers into the computer and his set was another horse that was already deceased that looked nothing like Celan. They typed in the number on my set of papers and found that Celan was rightfully mine. The man was tried and convicted of attempted murder of an animal, and fraud and was sentenced to Life in Prison and expulsion from any North American racing track. Celan recovered and returned to racing 2 months later to take a close second in the BC turf race.
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