Racing: Ponderosa Miss defies odds

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Astonishing win at Te Rapa when mental trauma would have undermined most horses.

Special horses do special things.

Things they shouldn't be able to do.

Like when Volkstok'n'barrell won at Ellerslie last weekend when co-trainer Donna Logan, one of the industry's best judges, said he couldn't possibly win.

Ponderosa Miss shouldn't be racing. The kick in the head she received when she crashed in the Hastings home straight on August 30 should have killed her.

If she wasn't such a special individual it almost certainly would have.

The mare's astonishing resuming victory at Te Rapa on Saturday defied these facts:

• The long Hastings-Cambridge float trip after the injury as an extremely ill horse.

• Blood poured out of a hole in her head the size of a fist.

• Much of her skull was crushed.

Yet she was such a remarkable patient Cambridge veterinarian Ian McKay operated on her head without general anaesthetic.

Even horses that can survive such debilitating injuries shouldn't be able to race again.

The sheer mental trauma would severely undermine 99 horses in a 100.

Ponderosa Miss is that one remaining horse.

She showed it when Peter and Darrell Hollinshead took her back to the barrier trials to test her nerves and resolve. Perfect.

It was perfection again on Saturday when Noel Harris pressed the Ponderosa Miss button and asked her to push through a narrow gap along the rail. This was a hold-your-breath moment - it was on the same part of a racetrack the mare suffered her crushing injuries the last time she'd been saddled up raceday.

Many horses would have put their head up and started thinking.

Ponderosa Miss stuck hers down and sprinted through as if she'd never had one bad life moment.

That's beyond special and Peter Hollinshead predicted it the night of his fine mare's August injuries.

"If she survives this and gets back to the races, I'm not worried about her courage," he said at the time. "She's not a worrier."

Noel Harris does not put glowing predictions on horses.

"She's group one," he said afterwards on Saturday.

That's even more special.

Heroic mare

• Ponderosa Miss sustained horrific injury in August.
• She shouldn't be racing.
• Noel Harris says she's group one.