From Tony Curtis - Farewell Hot Danish

On Friday 29th April I posted a piece on this blog as a farewell tribute to a very favourite pony of mine, the great mare Hot Danish.  Within hours of it being posted a family member of some of the part owners of the mare sent me an email, which was incredibly touching.  His email is below.  And then this afternoon, on Monday 2 May, I received this email from Tony Curtis, who was the managing owner of Hot Danish.  I read his email, whilst I was down feeding my own darling mare Freelance, with tears trickling down my cheeks.  I wanted to share it, as it goes a long way towards disproving the largely mislead belief that horses are fodder for the cannons and that owners, trainers, etc, do not love their horses.  They do.  Very much.

Dear Bronwen,

Thank you very much for your beautiful vale to our beloved racemare, Hot Danish.

I am the managing owner and just seeing your pictures and reading through your most thoughtful and sincere words brought back the many moments of joy she gave us. It's very clear that you loved her too and when, near the end, I saw the pictures of you and Hot Danish standing together in Melbourne I was once again reduced to tears as we were on that awful day, some two weeks ago, when she finally lost her battle. She fought so hard, as she had done against another leg infection as a 3YO, but this time the bug, in the golden staff family, proved too damaging to defeat.

So many people have contacted us about her. I hadn't realised quite how popular she was, even outside the racing industry. I tell them we want to celebrate her life and what she was able to achieve, which is true.

But the reality is that I cannot quite believe she's gone.

We are all missing her so much and thank you for the glorious pictures of our Hot Danish showing so clearly her immense will to win, whatever was thrown at her!

Very best regards,

Tony Curtis
 And this was the first email I received from Russ McNamara:

Hello Bronwen,

My wife sent me your link today about Hot Danish - http://bronwenhealyphotography.blogspot.com/2011/04/vale-hot-danish-life-in-pictures.html

What an absolutely superb story and series of pictures.

My in-laws were part owners of Hot Danish and my father-in-law named her, they have owned a number of horses over the years with Tony Curtis / Les Bridge.  We have followed her career closely since it began and have been at most of her races, getting all the updates of her for everything, seeing pictures of her at Emeran Park spelling etc.  She was an absolute joy to many people whether associated with her or not.

I cant speak for anyone but everyone is devastated with what happened to her.  My wife and I were looking forward to seeing the next stage of her career as a broodmare and we still cant believe what happened.  What a tragic end to a brilliant career.

I always thought she was robbed at least 2 more group 1's due to weather but that means nothing now.

I know your blog has been forwarded on to the owners and I'm sure some will be in touch. 
Great photos and thanks again for putting this together.  My brother is a horse racing photographer in Melbourne for the Herald Sun and has also got some good images of her racing down south (Salinger).

Kind Regards

Russ McNamara
 
 
 
 
 
 

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