by Anna Svensson, Harness Racing Communications

Freehold, NJ — Swedish trainer Ove Kristoffersson, who is stationed at a training facility close to Turin, Italy, had a very tragic Christmas Eve when his two barns burned to the ground.

“I got a phone call at 8:00 p.m. that my stable was on fire,” said Kristoffersson to travronden.se. “When I got there, the one barn was totally lit up and none of the horses could be rescued from the flames. In the other barn, my staff got six horses out before a violent explosion occurred and nine horses were burned to death.”

At this time there is no explanation to what started the fire, but because it was in two separate barns, Kristoffersson is somewhat suspicious that they were intentionally put on fire.

The richest Standardbred of all time, Varenne, is stabled only a couple of hundred yards away from the site of the fire.