A barn fire caused by an electrical storm in the Lexington, Ky area claimed the lives of three horses in Wesley ward on March 6. report from Horse Racing Nation, investigators from the Lexington Fire Department told the trainer the fire started around 12:50 p.m. EST when lightning struck a guard post leading into the barn.
The three horses that were killed were Strike the Tiger, Ward’s first Royal Ascot winner, 5-year-old Modesto and an undetermined 2-year-old boy Hootenanny gelding.
Strike the Tiger, the 15-year-old son of Tiger Ridge, is Ward’s annual pony abroad for the Royal Ascot meeting. Gelding scored in a 2009 Windsor Castle Stakes match in Ascot for Ward at the age of 2. A stake winner on US soil as well as in Chenery Staking at Colony Downshe was placed in Transylvania Staking (G3T) at the age of 3 and went on to earn $209,048 in his 30 years of start-up.
The Uncle Mo Ridgling Modesto, owned by Ramon Tallaj, broke her maiden at a second ask last April at Keeneland. He has been unsuccessful since that attempt and no recent exercise has been recorded. Modesto sold to Cromwell Bloodstock as a longing for $240,000 at the September 2018 sale in Keeneland from Mulholland Springs consignment.
News of the fire was first reported by Horse Racing Nation.
