Whatever happened to … Besotted?

It was a dream 10 months in 2013-14 for Lincoln Farms when their showy black Besotted bagged seven wins, culminating in a shock victory over Elios and champion mare Adore Me in the $100,000 Taylor Mile at Auckland. But whatever happened to the horse who rocked punters that night with a $42 win dividend?

We never saw the best of Besotted, a “great horse’’ according to trainer Ray Green, given he was saddled with multiple problems all his life.

A week after he won the Taylor Mile as a five-year-old, he contested the Messenger, and for the second time in his career was sidelined for 16 months with a suspensory ligament injury.

When he made it back to the track he managed to win one of eight starts then was promptly dispatched to Perth where he raced on a 50-50 deal from the stable of leading trainer Gary Hall.

Arriving in Western Australia in mid-January, 2016, Besotted’s bad luck continued.

Beset with a lingering abscess, farriers eventually dug it right out and discovered a 5cm chunk of wood embedded in his foot.

Besotted finally made it back to the track in April of 2016 when he ran third only to damage his suspensory ligament again.

“We just chucked him out into the back paddock and I wasn’t going to bring him back again,’’ says Hall.

Besotted was out for a month short of two years and might well have stayed there but one of the girls in Hall’s stable decided she wanted to have a go with him.

“He actually won a couple of races earlier this year.

“But I did a lung wash and discovered he was also a bleeder. I don’t know whether he’ll get back to the races but he’d never reach any great heights again anyway.’’

Now 10, Besotted has won 17 of his 70 starts.