Edward Teach

*** SOLD ***

Edward Teach (JC: Weigh Station)

February 22, 2008 Floridian bred bay with star and snip gelding by Closing Argument out of Weight No More. He was bred by Nature Coast Thoroughbred. Lines include:  Storm Cat, Seeking the Gold, Mr. Prospector, and Secretariat.

Eddie had a decent race career. He had 21 starts and won $27,615.00. It appears he excelled at long distance races. It took him 9 tries before he broke his maiden in a mile and half race, and during this race he was claimed. His new owner, trainer, AND jockey were all women. His winning streak started with Jacqueline Davis as his jockey. He won many of his races, or placed 2nd or 3rd. Then he was sold again to an owner/trainer combination woman and his winning streak was over. She entered him in short races, where he was outrun and/or tired since he wasn’t much of a sprinter. Eddie was never retired because of the case of the “slows”. His last on track owner ran out of money and could no longer pay for entry fees nor for normal horse expenses. Thoroughbred Placement Resources (TPR) stepped in and gave him a home. He retired late April 2012.

TPR restarted him under saddle and we purchased Eddie late May 2012. Our trainer, Kimberly, took him under her wing and started him with the basics. He was a quick learner, and appeared to enjoy the work. We introduced him to jumping within weeks of being with us. We started his show career with a dressage show, where he won both classes. We moved him onto jumper shows, where he would place even in classes with 15 horses. We took him cross country schooling at Kelly’s Ford in Remington, VA in September. October he swept his division (34.4 in dressage and went double clean in stadium jumping and cross country) at his first event at Maryland Horse Trials at Loch Moy Farm! We couldn’t have been more proud of our baby OTTB.

We sold Eddie to Sam Evanko in December. She renamed him Dobby after the Harry Potter character. They are a cute pair. While trying him out, it was apparent they were meant to be!

Who was Edward Teach?

Edward Teach is more commonly known by his nickname, Blackbeard.  This is taken directly from Wiki:

“Edward Teach (c. 1680 – 22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard, was a notorious English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of the American colonies. Although little is known about his early life, he was likely born in Bristol, England. He may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne’s War before settling on the Bahamian island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined sometime around 1716. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition to their fleet of two more ships, one of which was commanded by Stede Bonnet, but toward the end of 1717 Hornigold retired from piracy, taking two vessels with him.

Teach captured a French merchant vessel, renamed her Queen Anne’s Revenge, and equipped her with 40 guns. He became a renowned pirate, his cognomen derived from his thick black beard and fearsome appearance; he was reported to have tied lit fuses under his hat to frighten his enemies. He formed an alliance of pirates and blockaded the port of Charleston, South Carolina. After successfully ransoming its inhabitants, he ran Queen Anne’s Revenge aground on a sandbar near Beaufort, North Carolina. He parted company with Bonnet, settling in Bath Town, where he accepted a royal pardon. But he was soon back at sea and attracted the attention of Alexander Spotswood, the Governor of Virginia. Spotswood arranged for a party of soldiers and sailors to try to capture the pirate, which they did on 22 November 1718. During a ferocious battle, Teach and several of his crew were killed by a small force of sailors led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard.

A shrewd and calculating leader, Teach spurned the use of force, relying instead on his fearsome image to elicit the response he desired from those he robbed. Contrary to the modern-day picture of the traditional tyrannical pirate, he commanded his vessels with the permission of their crews and there is no known account of his ever having harmed or murdered those he held captive. He was romanticized after his death and became the inspiration for a number of pirate-themed works of fiction across a range of genres.”