‘Doby’ as he is now affectionately called is eventing with Hillary Irwin, the granddaughter of Toby’s Corner’s owners Dianne and Julian Cotter. “We were lucky enough to pick up Doby in August of 2011. He came to North Carolina, had a few months off, and has now started his new career as an event horse. Doby made himself the center of attention from the beginning and shows no signs of relinquishing that abiility any time soon! He has just started his new career with two Beginner Novice events under his belt; placing fourth at both! What a superstar! Doby knows no strangers, he is like our third lab (we have a yellow and a black – and now we have a red)! He has fit in wonderfully here and seems to be thoroughly enjoying his new career; his favorite jumps include ditches, water and liverpools. You do not find that too often! We are so happy to have the Little Irish Redhead with us and we are so looking forward to his future”.
Update – 4/3/2014 – Doby is fantastic. He just finished 4th at his third prelim at Southern Pines. He was fabulous! He will probably stay at prelim thru the year, but he already feels about ready to run intermediate- so there is a possibility of that happening this fall, or else he will finish up the year with a one star and nice long vacation! Here is his SJvideo from his last run; always things to work on, but I’m so happy with how he is coming along.
The above photo is the newest one from February 2015. His next event will be intermediate.
2020 – I do have some very sad news about Doby, and on the off chance you’d hear it from someone else first, I wanted to tell you.
He came in from the field last week with a weird lump on his head. We treated it, but had no improvement over about 7 days, so the vet decided he should come in for a higher resolution ultrasound. We were hoping for a TMJ issue. Turns out he has two tumors, one behind his eye and one on his nerve that controls a large portion of motor function in his face. We did a biopsy. It came back as cancer, which I guess is incredibly, incredibly rare to actually have full blown cancer in a horse. Poor horse really did/does have the absolute worst luck. The tumors are inoperable due to the location- the other problem is they believe it has most likely metastasized. We are all devastated, as he’d been in work about 5 days a week and was happy as a clam. He’s still comfortable at the moment (as far as we can tell), but the prognosis is that that will not last much longer. I told him I was just trying to find him a happy home, he didn’t have to do this to never leave!! Poor guy. Just an absolute case of terrible luck.
Anyway, sorry for the sad news, but wanted to let you know as I know you care about them as well.
Danehill Sunset 2007
Career Racing Summary
Starts Firsts Seconds Thirds Earnings
10 1 1 4 $ 13,942
Hillary wrote to me on January 25th.
I do have some very sad news about Doby, and on the off chance you’d hear it from someone else first, I wanted to tell you.
He came in from the field last week with a weird lump on his head. We treated it, but had no improvement over about 7 days, so the vet decided he should come in for a higher resolution ultrasound. We were hoping for a TMJ issue. Turns out he has two tumors, one behind his eye and one on his nerve that controls a large portion of motor function in his face. We did a biopsy. It came back as cancer, which I guess is incredibly, incredibly rare to actually have full blown cancer in a horse. Poor horse really did/does have the absolute worst luck. The tumors are inoperable due to the location- the other problem is they believe it has most likely metastasized. We are all devastated, as he’d been in work about 5 days a week and was happy as a clam. He’s still comfortable at the moment (as far as we can tell), but the prognosis is that that will not last much longer. I told him I was just trying to find him a happy home, he didn’t have to do this to never leave!! Poor guy. Just an absolute case of terrible luck.
Anyway, sorry for the sad news, but wanted to let you know as I know you care about them as well.
Footnote: She had been trying to find him the perfect home as it had become obvious over the years that he wanted to stay low level and Hillary does higher. Nothing had worked out for months though – there’s a reason for everything!
Today – February 11, 2020
Doby was put down last weekend, absolutely the right decision as he didn’t want to eat big carrots because his jaw/head were hurting, but we’ve been together going on 9 years, a bit like losing a best friend. I told him he always had a flair for the dramatic, and getting what he wanted! (In this case not leaving us!)