Dave Portnoy has been all-in on Lovely Grey this summer, and heading into race 8 at Saratoga on July 3, the vibes were already shaky. He posted before the race that the turf was playing in a way that gave his horse basically zero shot, which, fine, normal pre-race pessimism from an owner.
Lovely Grey being led through the paddock ahead of race 8, bib No. 8 and all, with Portnoy hyping her up.
Then things got a lot scarier than a bad track surface. Portnoy posted footage he'd been recording during the race and called it the equivalent of watching a car crash, while stressing that Lovely Grey, the other horses, and the jockeys were all okay. That's the kind of tweet you read twice to make sure you're not missing something worse underneath it.
Portnoy processing the spill afterward, insisting everyone involved walked away okay.
From there it turned into a full-blown vigil. Portnoy said Lovely Grey got up and was okay supposedly, then went straight to the barn to check on her himself, posting video of her getting hosed down and looked over. Eric Hubbs summed up the whiplash of the whole night pretty well, saying that after seeing the spill, the update felt like a miracle. It's the kind of reaction that only makes sense if you'd actually watched the wreck happen live.
The updates didn't stop once the adrenaline wore off. The next morning Portnoy was back with Lovely Grey thanking fans for the well wishes, bandages and all, and even brought her sister over to keep her company. By the following day, under the #GoGoGrey banner, he was posting again — this time with better news, saying she was feeling great.
A day-later update on Lovely Grey, up and looking healthy in the barn with Portnoy's dogs wandering nearby.
It's a quick turn from a genuinely frightening moment to a horse that's apparently back to her old self, and Portnoy hasn't let up on the running #LovelyGrey and #GoGoGreys coverage for a second. Whatever happens next at Saratoga, the internet's collectively invested in one horse's recovery now, which is a wild sentence to type but here we are.