The Black Pearl
by Lisa Harkema
He was seemingly on his way to massive international stardom, but lady luck didn’t shine her light on Rudolf Le Ann. His owner died in a plane crash on the way to watch his beautiful black colt race, and two years later, as the colt appeared to be “better than ever,” he was struck with a life-threatening illness which set him back permanently.
When Rudolf Le Ann started racing in 1993, it was evident that Danish trotting finally had a possible worthy successor to Tarok, their legendary superstar trotter of the 70s. Initially, though, it wasn’t that clear-cut. Tarok’s trainer Jørn Laursen broke Rudolf to harness but felt that that the yearling was maybe too wild to become a good racehorse.
Arne Normann was hired by breeder-owner Danny Bendtsen in December 1989 and deserves most of the credit for improving the manners of the black son of Peter Haughton-winner Why Not. “He was a challenge early on, because he was scared of everything. He was scared of anything new, scared of other horses, you name it. He would panic if the other horses came too close, for example. It was a struggle, but eventually he learnt to calm down. When he started racing, though, I think he outran the other horses just to get away from them,” smiles Normann.
It didn’t take too long for the rumor mill to start spinning, and as soon as he hit the tracks, he confirmed the rumors and more. When Rudolf was 3 it was obvious he was superior to his Danish competitors and needed to go abroad to be properly challenged. Rudolf’s first real test abroad was Färjestads Nordiska 3-åringspris, where he would cut his teeth on the outstanding Swedish three-year-old trio of Ina Scot, Top Love and Opus Broline, of which the former went on to be a world star.