Racehorse Is Unwanted No More

Animal With Hard Past is Gold Cup Champion

by Vicky Moon, Special to the Washington Post

Originally published at 9:44 a.m., October 20, 2008
Updated at 12:00 a.m., October 22, 2008

Although the stock market might have gone south, consider the tale of Gordon Keys's equine investment.

In October 2004, at the annual yearling auction at Virginia Tech's Middleburg Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Keys bid on a sad-looking brown colt. He was the last horse in the auction, and Keys put up his hand for $1,100.

"I just wanted to kick-start the bidding," said Keys, 75, who owns a horse and cattle farm in Upperville. "I'd promised my wife I wasn't going to buy anything."

Nobody else made a bid.

After signing the sales slip, he went to the barn to inspect his new horse and learned why no one else would take the risk. "He had a 12-inch gash in his chest," Keys said.

Four years later, the horse that nobody wanted has earned $56,464 in his racing career, capped by a come-from-behind victory Saturday in the $20,000 Old Dominion Turf Championship at the International Gold Cup Races in The Plains.

Keys's horse, I'm a Hokie, overcame not only the gash but a broken pelvis that kept him off the track for seven months.

x Even his earliest weeks were a hard-luck story. "His [mother] died a month after he was foaled," said Tim Parmly, a Virginia Tech animal care technician at the Middleburg center. We had to hand-raise him."

A team fed the foal by bottle every four hours, and he eventually was trained to drink from a bucket. After several months, he began nibbling milk-replacement pellets and hay.

"Like most hand-raised animals of any species, he became spoiled in a nice way," Parmly said.

The gash came from being kicked, resulting in a hematoma that the Virginia Tech veterinarians drained. The center kept the colt until his wound healed, and Keys didn't pick up his horse until four months after the auction.

"They didn't charge me any extra money," Keys said. "When they asked me what I was going to name him, I told them after thinking about it long and hard, I was going to call him I'm a Hokie since he had come from the Virginia Tech facility."

That was no easy decision for Keys, a tenth-generation Marylander and graduate of the University of Maryland.

Photo: Vicky Moon

Gordon Keys and his horse I'm a Hokie, which won the $20,000 Old Dominion Turf Championship at Saturday's International Gold Cup Races in The Plains

Keys has 20 horses, most of them thoroughbreds, at his 150-acre Beaver Dam Farm, as well as a 100-head herd of Angus cattle.

After he brought I'm a Hokie to his property, he realized the big colt would need time to mature, and he waited until the horse was 3 before putting him in training. Most racehorses are in some type of light training at age 2.

Keys's patience paid off. I'm a Hokie started his flat-racing career at the Charles Town Races on Dec. 2, 2006, placing third. He won his third race, on Jan. 20, 2007, and Keys knew the horse had potential.

"This horse likes to go long," he said. "At a mile, he's just starting. He doesn't roll until late in the race. He comes from behind."

In July 2007, I'm a Hokie raced at Colonial Downs in New Kent, Va. "He ran all the way in front and just lost at the end," Keys said.

The next day, I'm a Hokie was not acting right.

"I noticed that he was getting up and down in his stall and couldn't get comfortable," Keys said. A visit from a veterinarian revealed the broken pelvis, and the horse didn't run again until February.

This spring, trainer and former jockey Simon Hobson came out of retirement to ride I'm a Hokie in his first race after the injury, the Fairfax Hunt Races at Morven Park in Leesburg.

"I wanted to judge how the horse was feeling, if he was going to tire or if it was too much on him," Hobson said.

I'm a Hokie came in first again. At that point, Hobson decided to get the horse ready for the season finale, the 11⁄4-mile Old Dominion Turf Championship for Virginia-bred or sired horses.

"I'd like to take my hat off as a trainer and slap myself on the back," said Hobson, 41, of Middleburg. "But the truth is this horse is a big gentle giant, and he's easy to train."

I'm a Hokie won the James P. Mills Memorial race of a mile and a furlong at the Middleburg Fall Races at Glenwood Park on Oct. 3.

And Saturday, there were cheers and tears all around after he prevailed in the race at Great Meadow. Friends and fans came running to the winner's circle.

"I was 25 lengths behind at one stage, and he went right through the pack," said jockey Jeff Murphy, who took over the riding duties. "It was hard work, but it paid off. This horse has a massive heart, and he doesn't stop trying. He's had a hard-knock life, and he gives you 100 percent."

Virginia Tech students and alumni have enlarged I'm a Hokie's fan base. "Every place we go, there are Hokie fans everywhere," said Keys's wife, Robin.

After factoring in training fees and bills from blacksmiths and vets, Gordon Keys estimates that about half of the horse's earnings of $56,464 represents profit.

"I'm very lucky," he said. "I've never spent a lot of money on a horse, and it's easy to keep them on the farm. Cattle and horses, that's my life."

Tagged: dog, horses, The Plains

Your Thoughts...

Are you happy that the school year is over?