With A Name Like Valentine, He Might Belong At Seven Hearts

A friend of mine from my dog sport days, Iva was in Thoroughbreds before dogs. In fact, she went to jockey school in her native Czechoslovakia. In addition to training as a jockey, she owned a few Thorougbreds through the years including one that she bred and foaled on Valentines Day 2001. Czech Valentine, aka Toad, was her baby and she raised, trained, and raced him.

When her life changed with a divorce and she could no longer keep Toad, he went on free lease three years ago to a supposed good home. This is Toad at the new home when Iva last saw him.

The new home decided they couldn't use Toad anymore and apparently just stopped feeding him. This is how Toad looked when he came back to Iva this Spring.

You can imagine her heartbreak.

Iva is still not in a position to keep Toad herself but wants to be sure he is taken care of, I was honored when she asked if he could come here to me. He is sound, sane, and has a lot more years of not just life but active use left. He enjoys a job and is very easy on the eyes. All Iva had to do was feed him and he regained his previous state in no time, obviously not having a medical issue that contributed to his appalling condition and he passed vet exam with no issue.

I took the drive to meet Toad in person, he charmed his way to me pretty quick and let the little kids mug him. He's a typical big silly boy, he last measured 17 hands at 2 years of age and I'm pretty sure he's bigger than that. He responded well to me on the ground and Iva shared every detail of his life.

Czech Valentine ran 22 starts and earned just over $30,000. He has Timeless Native as a grandsire on his dam's side, Mr Prospector on his sire's side by way of Fappiano. Most of his blood history crossses back to Native Dancer (by way of Raise a Native).

So Toad will come and do a trial run here starting in a few weeks, hopefully getting along with Whisper. I'm not concerned with him fitting in with the boys at all, just my girl. I'm going to try very hard to call him Toad, though I may fall into calling him Czech (the track called him Big Czech) because he is just so lovely to look at and Toad is hard to pair with his pretty face. Iva gave him the nickname when he was little and into absolutely every bit of trouble he could find.

It'll be nice to have another sound horse around the place, another mouth to help crop back my ridiculously high pasture grass, and a back-up horse should Bandon need months off to grow hoof if the last round of plates don't stay on his feet. It's also nice to know we are helping a horse and a friend.