Raha Puhu means “money talks” in Finnish. He started four or five times and I’m not sure if he ever beat a horse. He was one of those horse that worked faster in the morning than he ran in the afternoon. In his defense, I never got to run him long, which is what he was bred to do. Charlie Essex had a filly this year out of the same family. The first time she routed she came from way off the pace and paid a bundle.
Jose Navarro trained him. He told me that we could probably get him to win routing at the bottom, but then what? He said he really didn’t think he wanted to be a racehorse. So we decided to quit on him and give him a new career. It is funny because he was so spooky when I galloped him that I didn’t think he’d ever go over fences. I had to put a shadow roll on him because he jumped the marks on the track, but he would duck and dive if he saw anything out of the ordinary. He ended up being worth a heck of a lot more as an event horse than he ever was as a racehorse. The new owners love him and say he’ll jump anything he is pointed at.
I have his full brother at home. I’m not even going to try and run him. He’s looking for a show home too.
—MaryAnn O’Connell
Raha Puhu (WA), 1999, g., Rio’s Lark—Dusty Rose, by Swing till Dawn.
Raced two years, 3-0-0-0.
