GEORGE BOUGHEY: Bow Echo’s Retirement

Following the announcement on Wednesday that Bow Echo will retire from racing, trainer and Star Sports brand ambassador George Boughey has penned some thoughts on the decision and reflects on his career…

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We’re incredibly fortunate to have had a horse like him, writes GEORGE BOUGHEY.

It has obviously been a difficult 24 hours since we announced Bow Echo’s retirement, but the overriding feeling now is just how incredibly fortunate we have been to have a horse like him.

I’m still relatively early in my training career and have spent years growing up watching the very best horses, so to have trained one who is now spoken about in the same breath as some of those great horses is quite hard to comprehend.

He retires unbeaten having won the 2000 Guineas, St James’s Palace Stakes and Sussex Stakes, but it wasn’t just what he achieved that made him so special. His constitution was extraordinary. He took everything we asked of him in his stride and continued to improve every time we raised the bar. Preparing him for the Guineas through the winter was special – he didn’t miss a beat and he just kept showing us the signs we hoped to see.

What has become increasingly apparent over the last few months is just how many people took to him. With every race, his following seemed to grow and particularly after Goodwood, you could really feel that he had captured the public’s imagination.

We have been touched by the number of messages we have received since announcing his retirement. They have come from people across racing and from fans all over the world, and we are hugely grateful to everyone who has taken the time to get in touch. It shows the affection people had for him and just how much of an impact he made in a relatively short racing career.

Billy and Jack both huge parts of Bow Echo’s journey

Billy Loughnane has been a huge part of Bow Echo’s journey. He understood Bow Echo brilliantly and rode him with enormous confidence on the biggest days. To see a young jockey and a young horse progress together and win three of the biggest Group 1 races of the season has been very special, and Billy deserves enormous credit for the part he has played.

I also have to mention Jack Callan, who rode Bow Echo every morning at home and has been such an important part of his journey. Jack knows him as well as anyone and the work he has done with him behind the scenes has been invaluable.

Naturally, we would have loved to have seen Bow Echo race again, but his welfare has always come before everything else. He is happy and well, and that is the most important thing.

Horses like Bow Echo don’t come around very often. We know how lucky we have been.

⭐ HORSE RACING MARKETS ⭐

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