When trainer Ray Schnittker looked at yearling pacer Tailgunner Hanover, he saw a resemblance to half-brother Riggins. Schnittker trained Riggins, who earned $924,758 during a stakes-winning career. But the fact he saw anything at all was something of a miracle.
Tailgunner Hanover is an embryo transfer foal out of Towners Image, who received the 1993 O’Brien Award for best three-year-old female pacer. In 2010, Towners Image nearly died while giving birth to a Western Ideal foal, which passed away.
Towners Image’s cervix was destroyed during the birth. After two unsuccessful attempts at embryo transfer in 2010 and 2011, her cervix was surgically repaired and she produced an embryo very late in 2012. She was 22 years old at the time. The resulting foal was Tailgunner Hanover.
“If she was any less tough than she is, because she’s really a tough old mare, she would have died,” said Dr. Bridgette Jablonsky, the farm manager at Hanover Shoe Farms. “(Tailgunner Hanover) is a real miracle baby. He shouldn’t be here.
“It’s something akin to when a couple is just about to give up on having a child and a miracle happens. Getting that embryo was quite a miracle; we didn’t think we would. He might be this great mare’s last hurrah.”
Riggins was Towners Image’s most successful previous foal, but the mare produced four other horses that earned six figures during their careers: Townslight Hanover, Tycoon Hanover, Prettiestgalintown, and Taco Hanover. All but one of her previous 10 foals won at least one race.
Tailgunner Hanover sold for $50,000 to Schnittker.
“Riggins was a really nice horse and I saw he was the same type of look,” Schnittker said. “And he was very reasonable. Hopefully it works out half as good as Riggins.
“When most people have a good horse out of a family, they tend to go back to the same family. That’s what I did. Hopefully it works.”
On some level, it’s already worked out better than anyone ever expected.
This story courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, visit www.ustrotting.com.