Rick Wallace and Ultimate Victory. Photo via Rick on Facebook.
After a devastating freak accident that resulted in the loss of his left eye back in April, Rick Wallace’s 17 year old Thoroughbred gelding, Ultimate Victory made a comeback to competition this past weekend with Briggs Surratt in the irons. We’ve been following along with “Cody” and his recovery and adjustment to one-eyed life, which Rick says has gone remarkably well.
“I am not sure if Cody even realizes he is missing an eye!” Rick wrote just 17 days after the loss of the eye when a cross tie clip hit Cody. “To the thousands of shares from his injury less than 3 weeks ago and to all the thousands of well wishers, we say thanks.”
Now, Cody is back to competing and tackled the Open Preliminary division at Chatt Hills last weekend, finishing in the top 10 with just some time added on cross country. Rick was thrilled, and is more than relieved to see his soulmate horse happy and thriving again.
“The results of the pull back and retraction that hit my 4 Star horse in the eye- was, what I thought career ending” Rick wrote in his most recent social media post. “We posted the accident as a PSA on those type cross ties in the hope that we may save others from the same outcome. While I was hit with many bad posts, I was encouraged that my experience helped others in the positive posts received!
Cody is an amazing 17 year old Thoroughbred that took each day with grace! I started day one to introduce his life with one eye as normal as I could!
Just less than two months later, Cody and Briggs tackled the OP at Chatt Hills with brilliance! Finishing 10th only due to time on CC.
Briggs is my hero for taking my soulmate around with caution and care in all three phases! His show jump round was nothing less than brilliant. He prepared Cody for each turn off the left to ensure he knew what was next. Watch this show jump round of a horse that two months ago had two eyes! I cried! Go Cody my amazing one eyed super horse! The future is bright with one eye!”
You can watch videos from Cody’s comeback in the post below. We’ll continue to follow Cody’s progress as he gets back into competition mode, not missing a beat even with one less eye. Go Eventing.
So my update of Ultimate Victory aka Cody. On April 29th of this year I posted about the devastating injury to Cody’s…
Posted by Rick Wallace on Tuesday, June 30, 2020
