Classical Melody finds new home with LongRun

Did you know that, although LongRun’s mandate generally restricts us to taking horses directly from the track, we are sometimes able to help financially when a horse with Canadian connections is in a precarious situation, needs assistance with a placement or financial help with veterinary bills.

Such was the case with Classical Melody, a 12-year-old Alphabet Soup stallion who was unfortunate enough to be one of the group of horses found in dreadful condition on a Stouffville, Ontario, farm earlier this year.

Our friend and former foster caregiver, Alain LeMay, generously offered the horse a stall at his Stouffville farm while he looked for permanent placement but an aged stallion is always difficult to place. LongRun was happy to help by arranging and financing his castration which, because of his age, needed to be performed at a clinic.

Milton Equine Clinic was very generous in discounting their services while Sean Smullen of Adena Springs kindly helped with transportation. Classical Melody is now happily recovered and has found that special someone to take him home. Another Ontario-bred LongRun helped outside our mandate was Charlie Bull, a well-travelled 2008 Philanthropist gelding who won 16 of 92 starts and close to $359,000 over his lengthy career.

Four of those wins came at Woodbine, five in Puerto Rico and the balance at a variety of tracks in the Eastern U.S. Claimed away from his Canadian connections in 2013, Charlie travelled from Parx to Monmouth to Laurel to Pimlico to Penn to Delaware and, finally, to Finger Lakes prior to leaving for Puerto Rico in the fall of 2015, where he won 5 of 25 starts before Hurricane Maria struck the island in 2017.

Now retired from racing, he came under the care of Caribbean Thoroughbred Aftercare but, because Charlie’s prospects of adoption are so little in Puerto Rico, they reached out to LongRun for assistance, which we were happy to provide, to help Charlie return home to North America.