War Envoy

My name is War Envoy and I am a champion ‘racehorse’. I am one of those that they say are “treated like royalty”. I don’t know what it means to be royalty, but it’s hard to believe that those who looked down on me from the royal box at Ascot would end up almost starving to death in a cold, muddy pen – like I did.

I was just 2 years old when I first raced at Royal Ascot. I didn’t win, but they still had plans for me. The next year when they brought me back, I came first in the Britannia Stakes – a prize of £74,700. I became one of Aidan O’Brien’s Royal Ascot champions – eventually there would be 100 of us. I was celebrated and paraded, but so very quickly I was discarded. I would never race in the UK again. 

Back in the United States, I was passed around. I was sold at auction, I was made to race again, and ultimately, I was left to die. 9 years after my Royal Ascot win, I was trapped, alone, in a tiny metal pen. I was so hungry, so thin that I could swear I could hear the raindrops chime as they hit my ribs and rolled off to fill that pen with mud. There was so little energy in my body that I just wanted to lie down in the mud. But if I did, I knew I would never stand up again. 

Kentucky Humane Society Equine CARE found me just in time to save me. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t treated like a financial prospect, or a burden, but like a horse who deserves to live. They washed the mud from me, fed me, and gave me somewhere safe and dry to recover. Against the odds, I survived. 

I lost half of my life to racing, and for so many others like me entire lives are lost. Whilst trainers celebrate their latest wins, they have no idea what has happened to the horses whose bodies won their historic victories. Many of us don’t survive, and many like me end up living a life not worth living.  

My name is War Envoy. I am someone.