Grim news out of Lexington this morning with word that Grade 1 winner, millionaire and fan favorite Turallure was euthanized after suffering injuries beyond repair during a gallop Thursday at Keeneland Race Course.
The 6-year-old son of Wando fractured his right hind pastern and after he was sent to Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington that it was determined the extent of the injuries were too severe for Turallure to be saved.
Obituaries detail the numbers, earnings and stakes wins. They show Turallure winning six of 26 starts, including the Grade 2 Bernard Baruch at Saratoga and Grade 1 Woodbine Mile at Woodbine in 2011, and earning $1,378,997. He was second five times, including a heart-breaker to massive longshot Court Vision in the 2011 Breeders’ Cup Mile, and third three times.
As always, there’s so much more to a horse of this or any caliber than stats, starts and dollar signs.
Charlie LoPresti was around Turallure from the beginning, raising and breaking him at his Forest Lane Farm in southeastern Lexington. After he saddled Turallure to victory in the Bernard Baruch, LoPresti talked about how the horse would be ridden “around our indoor arena” in the winter months with the likes of Wise Dan, Successful Dan and Here Comes Ben.
Donna Arnold, who campaigned Turallure in the name of her Four-D Stable, allowed LoPresti to be patient with the horse and as they so often do, the horse rewarded that patience. Even though he was a notch below his form of 2011, Turallure was still competitive in most of his seven starts this year.
Turallure was especially competitive in a tough allowance last summer at Saratoga, finishing second to Seal Cove and earning a chance to bid for a second Bernard Baruch victory.
“That’s what I’ve been wanting forever and I knew once I got him up here he’d wake up,” LoPresti said after Turallure finished second, his best placing since a second in the 2012 Maker’s 46 Mile at Keeneland. The satisfaction LoPresti got from Turallure came after the horse battled back from cannon bone bruising suffered not long after the Maker’s 46 Mile back in the spring of 2012.
During his convalescence, again at Forest Lane, Turallure would get “treated like a sale yearling” with the clearance to go “out as soon as it gets cool in the evening and stays out all night long,” LoPresti said.
Read about Turallure on the sidelines at Forest Lane.
Read about Turallure’s progress in early 2013.
Read the preview and recap of Turallure’s allowance effort at Saratoga.
Video and recap of Turallure’s victory over Get Stormy in 2011 Bernard Baruch at Saratoga.
Video of Turallure’s victory in 2011 Woodbine Mile.
