When I was thirteen I entered an essay contest run by Dayna Davis of the United Thoroughbred Fan Clubs. The prize was to have a racehorse owned by top owner Mike Pegram named after me. I won that contest and after learning the breeding of the filly I'd be naming (Explosive Red x Most Inviting, by Bold Ruckus), I chose a name for her...Susie's Big Blast. I didn't hear anymore about her until the spring of 2000, when, at the age of three, she started putting in clocked works. Not long after she started working, I won another essay contest, this one through Kids To The Cup, which won me a trip to the Kentucky Derby. I met Mike Pegram at the Kentucky Derby Museum after the race and introduced myself. He immediately remembered who I was and the filly I had named. He gave me an update on her, informing me she'd be racing soon. And she did just that. She made her debut in July in a maiden special weight at Lone Star Park. She ran a very green sixth that day. It was the first time I'd actually laid eyes on my special filly...a pretty chestnut. She dropped down in class next out, to a maiden claimer at Ellis Park, and ran greenly again to finish fourth. Two starts later she was in the winners' circle at Turfway park after beating a group of older fillies and mares in a maiden claimer. She lost her next couple of starts, all on sloppy tracks. Then came January 1. It would be her most impressive race and her last win. Back on a fast track, she took the lead early and pulled away to win with ease by 6 3/4 at Turfway. At 6:45 on January 11, I turned on TVG to see my girl run in a 6 1/2 furlong $15,000 claimer for fillies and mares, four and up, at Turfway Park. There she was...right in the middle of the screen when the TV went on. She loaded quietly into the gate and broke quickly, the number four horse in an eight horse field. She bounded easily to the front and was running that way, her ears pricked, until she was near the 1/2 pole. Suddenly her jockey stood up in the stirrups, pulling her back. My face went white. She was off the screen as the field went around the turn. as they came into the stretch, I saw a loose horse, a chestnut, running behind the field. I assumed it was Blast...I hoped it was Blast. It wasn't. Betty's Timb Bomb had stumbled over Blast's jockey and had also lost her rider. I found out later that Blast had been euthanized. I said in the essay I wrote when I won the priviledge to name her that, "This filly might come in last all the time but is never a loser, to me anyway. That's what matters, the love of the gorgeous horses that compete." R. I. P. Blast...wherever you are.

Susie's Big Blast in the winners' circle at Turfway Park on January 1, 2001. Photo courtesy of Turfway Park.

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