Ring Back was a mare bought ‘sight unseen’ when Ben Case offered her on behalf of her owner after I had already purchased her best offspring, Midnight Jazz. At the time Ring Back was sixteen years old and the price was reasonable for a mare of her age and quality – she was by Bob Back from a mare by Ardross, had been Black-Type placed herself and produced two other winners apart from Midnight Jazz.
The ‘reasonable price’ was just as well because I had to pay for Ring Back twice, the first time being to a fraudster that hacked into Ben’s email account and sent a ‘correction’ to the Bank details previously quoted. Since the English on the ‘correction’ was decidedly inferior to that on the original, I really should have rumbled it!
So should the bank, since the Account Number quoted doubtless belonged to a very different name than that I cited on the bank transfer; but in those primitive days of internet banking (it was back in 2017 after all) banks didn’t actually check that the account details on a payment matched the name of the intended recipient. They started to do so two years later.
The other problem with Ring Back, which Ben had told me about, was that she had an unsightly sarcoid on the inside of her left hind thigh – at least I think it was him speaking on the phone, I doubt a fraudster would have mentioned the sarcoid. Mr Hockenhull didn’t like the look of this from the first time he saw it, but I had already agreed to take the mare by then – and I obviously knew better than he did.
Sarcoid apart, Ring Back was a big, impressive chestnut, much bigger than her best daughter; and I felt sure her looks, pedigree and breeding record made her a decent buy even at twice the price quoted for her. She began her breeding career for us well enough, with very nice 2019 and 2020 fillies by Telescope, the first retained by us to race and the second sold as a yearling for £6,500.
The 2019 filly was named Phone Home and she proved a decent but rather frustrating racehorse, placing second twice and fourth four times in her first six races over hurdles. Trainer Jamie Snowden had long suspected a soft palate problem, but veterinary advice was that though she made a whistling noise it did not affect her breathing, and I kept reminding the trainer of this.
However, on her seventh outing, at Haydock where I went to see her race, she dropped back quickly to be a well-beaten fifth; and jockey Gavin Sheehan confirmed what was now obvious even to me, that she needed wind surgery. This being the case, and feeling that she was unlikely to prove a Black-Type performer, I suggested dissolution of the small syndicate racing her and sold her on to Jamie to race for a new syndicate. She is a big, strong mare and if the breathing can be sorted out she should do well over fences.
As regards her dam, unfortunately Mr Hocky’s fears about the sarcoid proved unerringly accurate. After repeated treatments, first by laser and then by an special anti-sarcoid cream developed by a lecturer at Liverpool University, both of which initially made the sarcoid fall off and the residue greatly reduce in size, it swiftly grew back more horribly unsightly than ever.
Her foals managed to suckle; but, after the second was born Ring Back also showed increasing signs of lymphangitis, whilst producing ‘speckly follicles’ that made conception impossible. She was euthanised after her foal was weaned.