Vision

[Linny]

Cassalaria had one eye.

[Exterminator]

Lexington had to be retired because of impending blindness. I know that's not quite the same though.

[TheSpyder]

How come all horsed have no "i"s while geldings have one. When they make the cut does that mean.....oh, never mind. not that funny.

Spyder

[paisjpq]

The sire of my horse, Our Michael....very obscure I know.....went blind while at stud and continued to breed mares for several years afterwards.


also a filly named Ivegotmyeyeonyou.....I think thats her name, she's a half to allude, was born with such a bad corneal ulcer and a deformed eye socket that she is blind on that side. She was running at turfway last I knew.

[my miss storm cat]

On I Can See, from SA barn notes today.....

I Can See lives up to her name each time she runs, although she sees only half as well as other horses. She only has one eye. “When she comes on the outside, she always hesitates a little because she can’t see the other horses,” said her trainer, Steve Knapp, who saddled I Can See to a runner-up finish at 21-1 in Saturday’s Grade III Tuzla Handicap. “She ran a huge race,” added Knapp, who trains the 5-year-old daughter of Flying Chevron for owner Michael Miller of Laytonsville, Md. “She was born without the (left) eye. I claimed her from (Vladimir) Cerin for $80,000. She’s a nice filly and she had a lot to overcome in the Tuzla. She was so far behind and had to go so wide coming into the lane. She doesn’t wear any blinkers. She was trained on the rail when she was a baby, and I think she’s a little gamer when she does come through on the rail because she can see all the horses.” The Kentucky-bred mare has a 4-9-2 record from 36 starts, with earnings of $289,723 .

http://www.santaanita.com/news/sn.ph...anuary20th2008

[sumitas]

It just seems that any horse competing with one eye should wear protective equipment over that eye.

[my miss storm cat]

On Blind Hero.....

http://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com...yID=result_452


by Lucas Marquardt in TDN:


BLIND HERO (c, 3, Unbridled's Song--Goulash {SW & GSP, $162,975}, by Mari's Book), a half-brother to Ashado (Saint Ballado), Ch. 3yo Filly & Ch. Older Mare, MGISW, $3,931,440, lost his left eye at the tender age of three days. He failed to find a buyer as a yearling at Keeneland September, RNAing for $675,000, buthe's gotten his racing career off on the right track. Sent off as the 4-1 third choice, the big grey colt raced in sixth and was caught very wide on the turn. He found clear sailing on the far outside in the lane, reeled in favored Make Me Proud (Two Punch) and bounded past that rival to score by 1 1/2 lengths. In addition to Ashado, Blind Hero is a half to Sunriver (Saint Ballado), GISW, $816,414; Saint Stephen (Saint Ballado), GSW, $313,214; and Storm Creek Rising (Storm Creek), MSP, $164,712.

Two years after his champion older sister Ashado won the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff and 10 months after she sold for a then-world record $9 million as a
broodmare prospect, Blind Hero, a son of Unbridled's Song x Goulash, entered the ring at 2006 Keeneland September with the pedigree power to be one of the sale's top-priced colts. A big, strapping gray, he had the looks, too. But the paddock accident that cost him an eye when he was just three days old also cost him any chance of bringing a seven-figure price. As it was, the Aaron and Marie Jones-bred horse was bought back for
$675,000--close to but not over his reserve. It was a disappointing moment for his consignors at Taylor Made Sales Agency. "I've got to say, I've never tried to sell a horse harder than I tried to sell that horse," remembered Taylor Made's Frank Taylor, an advisor to the Joneses. "Right
from the beginning I had loved him. Goulash threw nothing but good-looking runners, but I thought he was her best one."

Taylor's appreciation of the colt goes deep than aesthetics or pedigree, however. It was Taylor who discovered Blind Hero at three days olds, with one eye dangling, nursing from Goulash shortly after the accident. "We're not sure how he lost the eye," he explained. "There was some black paint near the eye, so I don't know if he was running next to the fence and was
bumped into or not. It's really hard to say."

Regardless, Taylor was so confident that Blind Hero would overcome his disability that he broke the colt before the September Sale, and made a video of the colt going in either direction on the lunge line to prove
to buyers his one eye wouldn't be a hindrance. The background music for the video? The Rocky theme song "Eye of the Tiger."

"When I broke him, he was such an unbelievably tough and athletic colt, and I just got the feeling that he was going to be a runner," said Taylor.
Buyers at September, however, were reluctant totake a chance on a horse missing his left eye, the one closest to the rail on the track.

"I think he would have brought $2 or $3 million if he'd had two eyes," Taylor said. Despite his initial disappointment, Taylor soon found
a buyer for the horse. "Luckily, I talked to [bloodstock agent] Mike Ryan,
and he agreed to take a shot on him." Ryan purchased the horse on behalf of Richard Santulli's Jayeff B Stable, whose trainer Alan Goldberg recalled, "We went out to Taylor Made andsaw him right after the sale, and he really was a gorgeous horse."

After being sent to Mike Boyd in Ocala, Florida to be broken, Blind Hero joined Goldberg at Colt's Neck Training Center in New Jersey last year, though the conditioner said he didn't push the horse to the races as a
juvenile. "He's such a big horse and he had a few minor issues,"
Goldberg explained. "We got him up to a half a mile in October, I think, but he started to get sore shins, so we just put him away for the winter."

Goldberg said he has been impressed by Blind Hero's ability to compensate for his lost eye, but said it has affected the colt's training to some extent.
"Little things bother him more than they would a normal horse, but he's pretty good," said Goldberg. "He lost the eye early on. I've trained a few other horses who lost an eye when they were older, and he's a lot
better than those horses."

Goldberg said he was also impressed with the colt's
professionalism in his first start. "He overcame a lot," Goldberg said. "He had really never been to the racetrack before today. We shipped
him to Monmouth Park once to breeze from the gate and he did okay, but every thing was really his first time today--first time in the paddock, first time getting tack on--and he handled everything."

Goldberg said he would likely point the colt toward a first-level allowance race before considering any stakes races. "He always showed he could run in the mornings," he said. "I don't know what he beat today, but hopefully
he'll learn from the race. And he doesn't want to sprint; he's a big, long-striding horse. And then we'll go from there. He should make a stallion for somebody someday, he's such a great-looking horse."