Louie Dior designed to perfection

The son of impressive sire Sweet Lou USA, Louie Dior undeniably possesses more ability than the average horse, with 7 wins from just 10 starts the testament to that, but his journey to the racetrack has been far from smooth sailing, with issues before his two-year-old harness racing campaign almost putting a stop to his career before it even begun.

It was discovered before he was even two that he was plagued with ulcers, and what presented as a classic case of colic was actually a perforated ulcer, causing Annie Belton to make the quick decision to send him to Murdoch to save him.

“We nearly lost him, he’s been through the mill, early on in his campaign.

“He was very sick in Murdoch, and it took us quite a while to get him back to where he is at, so that’s why you never saw him as a two-year-old,

“Even Murdoch have said it’s a miracle, basically.”

Louie Dior made it three straight this preparation when the short-priced favourite at Pinjarra on Monday led all the way in race six on the card, for driver Ryan Bell.

Bell, who has only driven just three times this year and boasts a 100% strike rate currently played an important part of Louie Dior’s education, and when he was asked if he wanted to drive the then three-year-old, he had his reservations.

“Before we started him, I said to Ryan ‘who would you put on him?’, and he said you don’t want anyone to gas him first up, you just want to take your time with him, and Colin said, ‘well do you want to drive him?’ and Ryan said, ‘I’m too fat.”

“I laughed and said well yeah you are, but do you want to drive him?” Annie Belton joked.

The arrangement is temporary, with Ryan Bell incredibly busy with his large team of young horses, but the combination is proving to be a successful one, with Belton making mention that she values his opinion.

Realistic that Louie Dior now needs to step up to that next level, she is quietly confident that he has the ability to take it to the next level.

“I’m just going to aim for the big feature races for him now, because I think he’s up to that level.

“I’ll be just picking his races after he gets through the country ones, you have to pick them up first obviously, then I’ll aim for the $50,000 races and the four-year-old races.”

“I quite like having the under achiever.”

Winning races is always special but winning with a horse you have bred is just something else, and for Annie Belton, they don’t get much more special than Louie, with a sad turn of events resulting in the gelding being the only living foal out Dior Mia More, a winner of 10 races out of just 20 herself.

“He’s really special to us, and we loved that mare as well, she was a very good mare,

“I just can’t tell you how special it is, my heart still missed a beat, even to this day, I’ve been doing this for quite a while now and I still get a thrill out of it, I still enjoy it.”

With her husband Colin working away for weeks at a time, Annie is often doing it herself, so with six in work currently, she has more than enough on her plate to keep her busy.

The Belton family breed a couple of horses each year and usually purchase a yearling or two at the sales, but sadly this was one of the first years at the sales where she went home empty handed, with the prices of the yearlings she had her eye on just out of reach.

Annie did purchase into a share of a yearling with Ryan Bell after the sales, and with the foals she is breeding in the coming seasons, she has mentioned that they will likely put them through the sale as well.

by Ashleigh Paikos, for RWWA