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DC Decider, 1995 Grey Gelding

Decider's Story

In December of 2002, A Texas horse trainer was at the farm looking at horses and saw Decider run in his pasture. She was awestricken with his extension and movement. She just could not get over him. So we decided, "what the heck..." and sent Decider to her in Cypress, Texas to see how he did under saddle.

It was a true experiment, as this stallion had never been ridden. And the reason is a tragic story that we hope one day will turn into a magical one.

When Decider was only a yearling, we found him in his pasture one morning, totally spastic, unable to walk and falling over. Our farm Vet arrived and recommended we take him immediately to a hospital for evaluation. We loaded him up and I rode in the back of the trailer all the way from McKinny, Texas to Dallas's Las Colinas Equine Hospital to keep him stable. We listened in horror as he was diagnosed with EPM. This was in 1996.

We were devistated. Of all the horses to get EPM (we had 15 babies in 1995!), why did the one that was the last baby of *SZALKA (dam of NF Proof, a four-time Darley Winner and Hall of Fame racehorse) and the one which we had the most hope for given his pedigree, get a disease that we thought would be a death warrant?

We cannot tell you how many breeders encouraged us to put Decider down. The word on the street in 1996 was that an EPM horse would never fully recover, and we would just continue to throw money for treatments into a damaged good. Ultimately, though, we just could not bear the thought of destroying this animal.

This was also a real tragedy for our program... Decider was the very last foal out of *Szalka (who we paid a fortune for) at 26 years of age. We had purchased *Szalka at the same time that we purchased NF Proof for the NF Proof Partnership at the Gucci Dispersal Sale at Scottsdale.

Boy, we were "young" in those days.

*Szalka was shipped in from Gucci's farm in upper state New York to Texas in really dreadful condition. (You probably remember the story of how the Gucci Farm was taken over by the state in 1994-95. That was a real story!)

Because we were concerned that *Szalka could not carry a pregnancy, we had to do an embryo transfer even to get Decider.... so, long story short, the EPM colt was already worth the price of a house and now we were faced with the idea that we could never run him. But no way did we ever consider putting him down! Call us fools one more time!

My husband, Dan, still calls him "Stinky" because the vets gave him intravenous DMSO during the treatments... he smelled like a bucket of garlic for weeks afterwards!

The colt could not even tell where to place his feet and would walk like he had no idea where the ground was for many months afterward. People would just shake their heads at us.

Dan came over to the farm every night for 12 weeks to hand walk Decider around the property since the colt had to stay in a stall. He was a huge yearling, and too unstable for me to handle him. He would get better, and then regress. We would start another extremely expensive course of treatments that included antibiotics and human medicine for malaria.

Each year the stallion seemed to get healthier and stronger... yet there was always that nagging concern that he might have had permanent nerve damage which would prevent his ability to handle a rider. (He is 8 years old now.)

So, that is the history. And so without too much expectation we loaded him up in early January and sent him off with the woman who was so impressed with him and apparently had as much confidence in him as we always have. We sent him thinking that it would do him good to have the opportunity to be in a training situation... to "see the world" at the very least, and we could bring him back for breeding in February or early March.

Well, he made it through three months at the trainer's place in Houston. We kept waiting to see some weakness, but nothing appeared! Our veterinarians watched his gallops and agreed with us... no faltering. He appeared to love the training, and even was a gentleman in the barn with all the mares!

The meet at Sam Houston closed and Decider is now over at Retama Park in San Antonio. He is getting his gate card, and perhaps soon some OFFICIAL WORKS!

I am as excited about his first race as I have ever been about anything I have ever done in my life! Wouldn't this be something if he could do well? Even if he shows class and we bring him home, it will be a milestone for us. Hopefully we will be able to see him leave the gates. It is an Easter blessing of hope and faith if this fellow fulfills a destiny long ago prescribed by his ancestors.

More news as it comes.

Claudia