Legendary “Lost in the Fog” it’s gone
By Camilla Mancini
On Sunday 17th we lost one of the best colts the tracks have seen, on its stall at Golden Gate Fields, Lost in the Fog, the U.S. Champion Sprint Horse 2005 was euthanized, after suffering of cancer tumors for several months.
Lost in the Fog, named that way for its breeder, Susan Seper, one day that she actually lost him in the fog, won its first competition on November 14, 2004 at the Golden Gate Track, the Maiden Special Weight Race. After this first success it became unbeaten and acquired the first place on each one of its next 9 races.
In October 1st 2005, Lost in the Fog, was awarded with the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Sprint Horse, an annual American Thoroughbred horse racing reward, to honor the top horse in sprint races. With its 10-straight winning-races and with impressive margins, everybody expected Lost in the Fog to get as well, the 2005 Eclipse Award for the Horse of the Year. But the hopes ran away when he finished seventh at the Breeder’s Cup Sprint, on October 29th, 2005.
After the Breeder’s Cup Lost in the Fog got six moths off. Fog came back for the Oakland Tribune race, at the Golden Gate Track, on 22 April, 2006. He finished in second place behind Carthage.
His winning days seemed to be back, after he caught his 10th major racing triumph, on June 3rd 2006, when he grasped a sharp victory in the 6 furlong Grade 3 Aristides Breeders’ Cup Handicap at Churchill Downs. Ridden by Russell Baze Lost in the Fog won a purse of $69.024 and set a new record; this ended up being its last major race conquest.
By then Lost in the Fog already had the not-so-far discovered tumors. Despite the pain he could’ve been living, he ran July 13th on the Smile Sprint Handicap at Calder Stake, where he finished on the 9th position.
But it wasn’t going to be until August 13th when veterinarians at the UC Davis Veterinarian Medical Teaching Hospital found the first cancerous tumor on the 4-year-old stallion’s spleen. Only five days later other two tumors were found, one the size of a football along his spine.
After the revelation of the disease, the horse trainer, Greg Gilchrist, decided to take Fog back to his home at Golden Gate Fields and to his owner, Harry Aleo, in there he spent his last days being cared by all the people that loved him.
September 7, Lost in the Fog experienced just the first of the six chemotherapy treatments scheduled for him at the UC Davis School of Veterinary, but according to Gilchrist the cancer was too far advanced and they couldn’t get it turned around.
“Greg and I had long talks and set up some well-defined parameters of what we would do” said Dr. Smith, the veterinarian in charge of Fog. “We didn’t want the horse to suffer”.
On the 17th, Gilchrist was called from the barn, after their daily morning-walk routine, when the colt was clearly suffering an abdominal pain and lay down. The horse was sedated with a pain killer, but as the pain killer wore off the pain in him was clear, and the decision to give him peace by euthanize became the best and last option.
“Just kind of went downhill real quick. He was fine 30 minutes before we had to put him down” said Greg Gilchrist. “I won’t be over it for a long time. I probably won’t ever get over it. I will see him on the other side.”
“He was just a champion”, his trainer, Greg Gilchrist, said of the stallion “You go back to the Aristides Handicap (at Churchill Downs) in the first part of June, to win that race under adverse conditions to say the least. He had to have those tumors in him, one as big as a football then. What a champion.”
Definitely a champion! … The kind of champions we will like to see more often; the kind that battles pain of any kind to get to the top.
Lost in the Fog Memorial Day
If you are a fan of Lost in the Fog you won’t want to miss this event…
The coming Saturday Sept. 30 will be a day to remember the most popular horse to come out of Northern California since Seabiscuit. The Golden Gate Fields throughout the day will be showing highlights of this colt’s short but exceptional career and also will pay tribute to Fog’s #1 fans: his trainer, Greg Gilchrist and his owner, Harry J. Aleo.
Plus a special DVD with the 11 career victories of this amazing horse will be given to all the visitors.
If you go to this event please also do me a favor and make a donation to the Glen Ellen Vocational Academy, an equine retirement facility placed in Sonoma County. This institution provides a home to all those horses that are injured or in need of a home.
GEVA representatives will be at Golden Gate Fields to accept donations Sept. 30. Fans can also mail contributions to the following address: GEVA inc., Equine Retirement Foundation, P. O. Box 2101, Glen Ellen, CA 95442.
About the Author:
Camilla Mancini is one of the most qualified copy writers on Sports Betting and currently writes for Instant Action Sports. Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety on your site, make sure to leave all links in place and do not modify any of the content..
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