Aww, her death is one of the scars of my horsey life. I actually saw her in person in the last race she finished. Such an impressive creature. Still have the winning ticket that I never cashed.
Morbid question, but how much could have been left of the remains of a horse that was buried so long ago?
Did they move just a few bones?
Did they really move her, or just shovelled dirt around and called it done?
I would imagine that the skeleton was still in order. Also, they often put a blanket or a cooler under and over them when they are buried. More morbid question? I wonder if she still has the cast on her hind leg?
I assume she was just buried in the ground, no vault. So I would be surprised if there were that many bones.
I would hope not since the injury was to her right front.
I’m sorry- she had fractured a hind earlier in her career, which was when they determined that she did not tolerate casting well. My bad!
I remember reading that they had her shrouded, in effect. Mummy wrapped. Body in the hole, then one of the assistants did go down and put a cooler over her. As I understand it, she ripped the cast off her own leg fighting in recovery. Maybe the reason they wrapped her up was that her leg was totally mangled after not only initial injury but the cast ripping off, and they didn’t want to have that visible. Probably it was all bones now.
I have no idea of status on Timely Writer, but according to Wild Ride, I remember that Alydar was buried with the cast still on his leg from his first fracture. His second and terminal fracture in the clinic a few days later when he stumbled on his cast and fell was never treated; the people just realized this was now hopeless and euthed right then, but he was still casted from earlier. I do realize Alydar isn’t being moved; it just reminded me of that because of the cast still on the leg.
I’ve seen that floating around FB, but no real evidence to back it up.
She wasn’t buried in a casket, but she was shrouded or “mummy wrapped” which may have helped keep everything together/intact. So easier to remove from the burial hole.
Yeah, but if you don’t put her remains into a box, how are you going to move them? In a dump truck? It’s possible that they loaded everything into that box for ease of transfer.
No worries. I kind of laughed a little thinking this would make a good mystery novel if the injury didn’t match–“Who was actually buried in Ruffian’s grave?!!”
Her death still hurts. For years, I could not even say her name without choking up, and I kept a picture of her on my office wall for many years.
I think it is fitting that she is moved to Claiborne, remembered, honoured, and respected along with the other great, great horses buried there.
And since the farm has tours, people will be able to visit her grave, and her memory and name will live on.
I never said they wouldn’t put her remains in some type of container for travel/moving.
I simply said she was not buried in a casket 
Understood. However, they needed to put what was left into something to move it. I’m guessing it was that “box”.
Here’s a neat video by Claiborne which answers some of the burial method questions. In the first shot, you can see the red blanket down in the Belmont grave, the one that the assistant was asked to go down and put on her once her body was down there. (I’m amazed it isn’t totally rotted; props to that blanket company.) It looks like they “built” a box around the remains in the ground, then extracted them.
Claibornes video still shows her cooler with the name Ruffian intact amongst the dirt. They did build a box around the remains and then lifted them up. Great work.
I would also like to add that I love how they painted the box and supports in her colors before transporting it.
