Trotter Snow White euthanized at age four

Owner Curtis Larrimore has told harnessracing.com that the world champion trotter Snow White died early Thursday morning at the age of four after suffering a twisted intestine while at trainer and co-owner Kevin Lare’s farm in Delaware.

Voted the 2007 Two-Year-Old Filly Trotter of the Year, Snow White won 14 of 19 career starts and had earnings of $1,433,551. She was owned by Joe Petrosky, Mark Stonesifer and Larrimore’s North State Street Stable, Lare’s Harness The Power Stable, and Jerry Silva. A daughter of Self Possessed out of the Pine Chip mare Mom’s Millionaire, she was bred by Moni Market Breeders.

“I got a call around a quarter-to-five this morning that she was on her way to the New Bolton Center and that they assumed she had a twisted intestine,” Larrimore said Thursday afternoon. “I spoke to the surgeon and they told me she was in severe pain when she arrived. I told them to do whatever they had to do to keep her alive. She called me back (a couple hours later) and she informed me that her chances of survival were between five and 10 percent and she recommended euthanization.”

Larrimore said he called all his partners and the decision was made to euthanize.

“Everybody was in agreement to do the best thing for the mare and not let her suffer. She’s been too great a racehorse for us,” said Larrimore. “That all took place at 9:30 this morning.

“It’s a shame and we’re all devastated. It’s a tragic loss for us. She put us on the national racing scene.”

After a health-plagued sophomore year in 2008, Snow White was originally slated to be sold at the Tattersalls January Mixed Sale at the Meadowlands. Due to reported breeding problems she was withdrawn and then put back into training for a 2009 campaign. Larrimore said Lare had told him that Snow White had gone a training mile in 1:59 and change at the farm on Wednesday, and that “she is sounder than she’s ever been.” 

As a 2 year old, Snow White won 11 of 13 races, including the Breeders Crown, Goldsmith Maid and Oakville. Her 1:52.4 victory in an International Stallion Stake division at The Red Mile still stands as the fastest trotting mile by a freshman regardless of sex, and her earnings of $1,252,646 are the most ever amassed by a first-year trotter.

Snow White came into the 2008 season as a possible starter in the Hambletonian against the colts. However, her campaign was delayed after undergoing tie-back surgery during the winter to correct a breathing problem. That surgery was done at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center, the same clinic where she was taken after being stricken Thursday.

Snow White showed no ill effects from the tie-back surgery when she won her first two qualifiers. But she then made a break while on the lead in her first pari-mutuel start in the Historic-Coaching Club Oaks. The following week she won her Delvin Miller Memorial elimination and then won the $300,000 final, but her connections opted to enter her against her own peers in the Hambletonian Oaks.

Snow White made a break in her elimination and she failed to make the final, but that same weekend she won the Duenna at the Meadowlands. Two weeks later she started in the Colonial Trot at Harrah’s Chester against colts, but she again made a break and finished seventh in what turned out to be her final career start.

After Snow White won the 2007 Breeders Crown, Hall of Fame driver John Campbell stated, “She’s the best 2 year old I’ve ever sat behind. She’s head and shoulders the best 2 year old I’ve ever been associated with.”

Larrimore said Snow White will be cremated and he plans on keeping her ashes in an urn on his trophy case. “She will stay with me. She was good to me,” he said.

« Back