More than three and a half years ago the heart warming story of the Standardbred broodmare Emprize Hanover adopting an orphan colt despite having a newborn filly at her side was embraced across the globe.
It happened at Joanne Colville’s High Stakes Farm in March of 2016. Emprize had foaled a filly, nicknamed Elena, on March 4. Then 11 days later her pasture buddy Noble Flirt delivered a colt. Unfortunately the young mare died during delivery leaving the youngster on his own.
“As soon as it happened we were able to get milk from 'Emprize' for him as she was the only mare at that time with a foal. We got a couple of bottles into him and I’m thinking ‘what are we going to do? This is a nightmare,’” said Joanne who also serves as administrator and events co-ordinator for OSAS.
“Then the foal started to call and Emprize Hanover called back to him. So my ingenious daughter (Emma Christoforou) comes up with the idea of putting him in with Emprize and her foal.The mare sniffed him and licked him so they gently lowered him into the straw.”
And so a new family was created. Emprize lovingly welcomed her new "son" and the unusual trio soon became social media famous with their story shared and posted thousands of times across the world. Eventually author Victoria Howard wrote a book about Junior and Elena.
The hype surrounding the pair subsided after they were weaned and they began their training in hopes of becoming racehorses under the watchful eye of their breeder Charalambos Christoforou (Emma’s grandfather) who still owns and trains Junior, now known as Fleetwood.
In the middle of last year Christoforou sold Elena, christened Peristera, to trainer Jared Bothwell and his partner Stephen Durand. She has more experience than her brother from another mother thus far with 17 starts under her harness (including her first win on Dec. 19 at Mohawk). Fleetwood’s career is just nicely started with six starts to date. His debut win came on Dec. 12, also at Mohawk.
What has thrust the pair into the spotlight once more is the fact that they’ve been racing against each other over the past few weeks and that trend will continue this Monday evening at the Campbellville racetrack as both have drawn into the third race, an $18,000 conditioned trot.
Fleetwood has drawn post 1 with Christoforou’s son Chris at the lines while Peristera will depart from post 9 with regular pilot Jody Jamieson tapped to steer. Scheduled post tine is 7:50 p.m.
(OSAS)