by Charlene Sharpe, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

Charlene Sharpe

Whaleyville, MD — SOS Mackenna might not have made a distress call, but trainer Ed Evans recognized a horse in need of help.

Evans started feeding and caring for the then 8-year-old pacer after he was essentially abandoned at Ocean Downs following the track’s 2009 season.

“He was lame as a dog and looked like the buzzards were going to get him,” said Evans, a familiar face at Ocean Downs when the track’s stable area was still open. In addition to being underweight, Evans said there was puss running out of the horse’s blistered and lame legs.

According to Evans, owner Mickey Goldin left SOS Mackenna (Blissfull Hall-Getyourmotorrunnin) at Ocean Downs after the racing season ended because he was supposed to head south with another trainer. When there wasn’t enough room on the trailer for him, that trainer told Evans he’d return for the horse. Evans agreed to feed the horse for him until he got back.

“Nobody ever came and got him,” Evans said.

After about three weeks Evans called Goldin and told him he didn’t think anyone was coming for the horse. He said Goldin asked him to try to sell the horse, who had made just $629 in 2009. When that failed, Goldin offered him the horse.

“He couldn’t come get him so he said if you want him you can have him,” Evans said.

Once he became the official owner of the horse that had been in his barn for weeks, Evans decided the small stallion needed even more rest and gave him a couple months off.

“He was sore everywhere,” he said.

Rest and relaxation worked well though, and Evans put SOS Mackenna back in training, qualifying him at Dover Downs in late November 2009. The horse paced a mile in 1:59.4.

Evans decided to try SOS Mackenna at Freehold. Not only did the horse not have any luck, but a misunderstanding led to him racing for a claiming tag of $6,000 instead of the race’s also eligible non-winners condition. Because of that, the horse was then ineligible to race in Delaware, where Evans races most of his horses, as the lowest claimers in the First State are $7,500 claimers.

Disgusted with the situation, Evans gave the horse more time off, finally deciding in August of this year to race him at the Pocomoke Fair to get him qualified for somewhere. Justin Vincent drove the bay stallion, who won the race in 2:10.4 (with a nine second allowance).

“That was kind of funny,” Evans said, “because when they were going out Kim Vincent was joking with him and said ‘hey Justin did Ed tell you how to win with that horse?'”

Still ineligible for Delaware, Evans sent the horse to trainer Benjamin Gasque at Colonial Downs to race his $6,000 claiming lines off. SOS Mackenna, however, is working on doing more than just racing in the proper classes. In his first start at the Virginia track, the horse paced his first 1:55 mile since 2008, finishing sixth in a field of ten with a time of 1:55.1, last quarter in :29.1. The following week, on Oct. 9, SOS Mackenna outpaced the competition and took a new lifetime mark of 1:54.4.

“He’s a nice little horse,” Evans said.

Evans, who plans to continue to race him at Colonial, says that anyone who saw him on or off the track last summer at Ocean Downs would not recognize him.

“You wouldn’t know him if you saw him now,” he said, adding that he’s pleased with the way things turned out.

“I like the old horse.”