{"id":10816,"date":"2025-07-20T15:48:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T15:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/10816\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T15:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T15:48:09","slug":"one-eyed-wonders-the-horses-who-defied-rogue-joggers-and-stray-bullets-to-gallop-half-blind-into-our-hearts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/10816\/","title":{"rendered":"One-eyed wonders: the horses who defied rogue joggers and stray bullets to gallop (half-blind) into our hearts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-testid=\"Text__0__GlideArticleBody\">Suzy Smith once feared that <a target=\"_self\" data-testid=\"Link__02__GlideArticleBody\" id=\"material-world\u2019s\" class=\"sc-b2c32ca0-0 dLKaTt\" href=\"https:\/\/www.racingpost.com\/profile\/horse\/576481\/material-world\/form\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Material World\u2019s<\/a> career was over before it had even begun, thanks to the unwanted intervention of a jogger on the Lewes downs. Yet this Cheltenham Festival-placed mare went on to prove the best horse Smith has ever trained \u2013 even without one of her eyes.<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"Text__1__GlideArticleBody\">Material World is far from the only racehorse to have successfully overcome this serious affliction. Indeed, this article could just as feasibly start with a stray bullet from the rifle of a Classic-winning trainer or a shock defeat for the last northern-trained winner of the Derby. But instead let\u2019s rewind the clock to 2002 and that rogue jogger \u2013 or \u201ctrespasser\u201d as the trainer prefers to describe him.<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"Text__2__GlideArticleBody\">Material World was the apple of Smith&#8217;s eye at a time when she had only just started to train.<\/p>\n<p>Read the full story<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb0b4133-2 cgVXXE\">Read award-winning journalism from the best writers in racing, with exclusive news, interviews, columns, investigations, stable tours and subscriber-only emails.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to unlockRacing Post digital newspaper (worth over \u00a3100 per month)Award-winning journalism from the best writers in racingExpert tips from the likes of Tom Segal and Paul KealyReplays and results analysis from all UK and Irish racecoursesForm study tools including the Pro Card and Horse TrackerExtensive archive of statistics covering horses, trainers, jockeys, owners, pedigree and sales data<a href=\"https:\/\/www.racingpost.com\/subscriptions\/\" data-testid=\"Link__Subscribe\" class=\"sc-eb0b4133-7 yLNHi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"Text__Login\" class=\"sc-eb0b4133-8 gRoJBC\">Already a subscriber?<a data-testid=\"Link__Login\" href=\"https:\/\/www.racingpost.com\/api\/auth\/login\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Log in<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"Text__PublishedDate\" data-article-publish-date-string=\"Published on 20 July 2025\" data-article-publish-date=\"20 July 2025\" class=\"sc-baabe586-8 isYWMR\">Published on 20 July 2025in<a data-testid=\"Link__PrimaryTaxonomy\" data-article-primary-taxonomy=\"Features\" class=\"sc-baabe586-10 fCsTLE\" href=\"https:\/\/www.racingpost.com\/news\/features\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Features<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"Text__UpdatedDate\" data-article-update-date-string=\"Last updated 14:00, 20 July 2025\" data-article-update-date=\"14:00, 20 July 2025\" class=\"sc-baabe586-8 isYWMR\">Last updated 14:00, 20 July 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Suzy Smith once feared that Material World\u2019s career was over before it had even begun, thanks to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-10816","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-racing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}