When Lyndal Conroy snapped a video of her horse Fear Not crossing a little waterway during a morning training run in Australia, she had no idea of the worldwide attention it would receive.
The 34-second clip was shared on the Harness Racing Victoria Facebook page and has gone truly viral, with an astonishing 8.4 million views in the two weeks since it was uploaded.
Of those, more than five million have come from India, with over 780,000 out of the United States and in excess of 280,000 from Pakistan. It has also performed well in Australia (178,000+), the United Kingdom (173,000+), Bangladesh (170,000+) and Canada (135,000+). The video has had over 10,000 'likes' or reactions and more than 500 shares.
Conroy, who part-owns the horse trained by her father Glenn, said it was an amazing response on social media.
"I said to Dad that I couldn't believe the amount of views it's getting because for us it's common place. I see that sort of thing every single day and all of our horses are exposed to that kind of work every single day. So, for me, I just couldn't believe the fascination,” she said.
"I feel so lucky to own her and obviously every day for me is a good day when I get to feed and groom her, and Dad works her. So, it's nice that other people recognize her and know her name."
Conroy said it was normal for Fear Not, a veteran mare of 237 starts, to train in the kind of conditions seen in the video.
"She has her workload varied, so some days she will swim and then other days she will jog out in the bush," Conroy said.
"(With) the recent storms we had over in Daylesford, lots of trees came down out in the bush so her work plan got changed up a little bit because we couldn't physically access the bush. There were too many trees down.
"On that particular day when I was filming her, she was jogging down the road and she crossed that creek...goes across and does a few laps around the trotting track and then does a loop and heads back home again.
"The water doesn't bother her at all. It's a common place for her to walk through, the creek, and jog out the bush through puddles and that sort of stuff."
Fear Not, a winner of eight races and close to $200,000 in purses, is set to have her next start at Geelong on Saturday night.
(HRV)