The Blue Collar Worker
by Lisa Harkema
He competed for 12 seasons, won numerous big races through his 199 career starts and retired only to excel in show jumping dressage and everything else thrown at him. On Track Piraten won in several countries, over distances from one to two miles over ten seasons.
A son of Kool du Caux out of an unstarted mare by Rite on Line doesn’t sound like the traditional successful pedigrees. However, John Backlund was immediately interested. “Kool du Caux was a big personal favorite on the track, so I was very interested in that particular foal. I also knew that Monrovia had ability, but was known to be a bit crazy. Furthermore, I liked the extremely low inbreeding. If I’m going to take a chance on something that doesn’t have a super pedigree, I either want to go for an extremely low inbreeding or, on the contrary, a highly inbred individual.”
Getting what he characterized as “a good deal” from breeder Eva Eriksson, Backlund contacted friends and family, and managed to put together group of ten owners, half of which were strangers to him at the time. The project got off on the right foot as soon as Monrovia dropped her foal. “When he was born and it turned out to be a big black colt, we were quite pleased. He stood out from the others early on as he was very tall and large. He was much larger than the other foals and used to chase them around the paddock,” Backlund recalls.