Benny's fight to breathe becomes a story that's touched thousands

Brackley, PE. A wry-nosed foal born on Prince Edward Island last month has become one of Standardbred Canada’s most closely followed stories of the year, and the Sheppard family’s Living The Dream Stables is still working out what comes next for him.

The colt, a Somewhere Fancy youngster out of Lady Willa, arrived in mid-April with a visible structural misalignment of the nose and jaw known as wry nose. It’s a rare congenital condition, thought to stem from the foal’s position in the womb during development, and it varies widely in severity from one case to the next. In Benny’s case, the misalignment currently leaves him breathing effectively through only one nostril.

He’s known to his connections, and now to a growing following online, simply as Benny. His official name on the papers will be Livingallbentup.

Morgan Sheppard, who runs Living The Dream Stables with her family, has documented Benny’s first weeks in a series of social media posts that have carried the story well beyond the harness racing community. The stable has built a loyal online following over the years by sharing the day-to-day realities of raising and racing standardbreds, and that groundwork has clearly paid off in how quickly Benny’s story has spread. CBC News has since profiled the foal separately, a sign of how far his story has travelled outside the sport itself.

Sheppard has been open from the start about how uncertain those first moments were.

“When he arrived, it was clear right away that he had a wry nose. In those first few moments, your heart sinks… and your mind goes straight to the hardest questions. But he didn’t hesitate. He got up. He tried to nurse. He fought. And in those quiet early hours, he showed us something you can’t teach, heart. Knowing how tough his mother is, and the grit behind his sire, we made the decision to give him a chance, because he was already proving he wanted one,” Sheppard said.

That decision paid off within days. The two most urgent concerns after a wry nose birth, whether the foal can breathe well enough and whether he can nurse, both resolved in the hours and days that followed. Benny got up, found his mother, and started feeding.

He’s kept building on that start since. Sheppard says he’s nursing well and steadily gaining strength, a foundation that matters enormously for whatever comes next.

The immediate question now is his airway. Because Benny can currently breathe effectively out of only one nostril, the family is consulting with a veterinary team, including a surgeon, on whether an operation is needed to correct the misalignment. Surgery for wry nose is typically considered when a foal has trouble nursing or breathing, or when the structural issue threatens the horse’s long-term quality of life. Outcomes for foals who do need surgery are often good, particularly when the procedure is carried out early, though every case is assessed on its own physical presentation rather than a standard timeline.

“The encouraging part in our colt’s case is that he is nursing well and gaining strength. However, one of the main concerns right now is that he is only able to breathe effectively out of one nostril due to the misalignment. Because of that, we are consulting with our veterinary team about whether surgery may be needed to help improve his airway and give him the best chance moving forward,” Sheppard said.

There’s no fixed timeline yet on that decision, and the family isn’t pretending there is one. For now, the approach is to keep monitoring Benny closely rather than rush toward an outcome before the full picture is clear.

“The goal of any treatment is always the same, to give the foal the best chance at a comfortable, healthy life. Right now, we’re taking things day by day, making sure he continues nursing, gaining strength and staying bright,” Sheppard said.

That day-by-day approach has resonated widely. Wry nose is uncommon enough that most people outside the breeding side of the industry have never heard of it, and Living The Dream Stables’ willingness to show the process in real time, uncertainty included, has turned a foal that might otherwise have gone unnoticed into a genuine talking point. The comments on the stable’s posts have carried messages from breeders who’ve dealt with the same condition privately, from casual followers with no connection to harness racing at all, and from people simply invested in seeing how Benny’s story unfolds.

That kind of reach is rare for a foal with no race starts and no name recognition beyond his page, and it says something about how the sport’s smaller, human moments can travel further than a big result ever does. It also puts a bit of pressure on Living The Dream Stables to keep the updates coming, something Sheppard appears happy to do given how openly she’s shared each step so far.

None of that changes the practical reality still ahead for the Sheppards. Whatever the veterinary team ultimately recommends, Benny’s case will likely be watched closely by breeders and owners who encounter the same condition far less publicly. For now, the encouraging signs, a foal nursing well, gaining strength, staying alert, are exactly what his connections needed to see in these first weeks.

Living The Dream Stables says it will continue to share updates on Benny’s condition and any decision on surgery as it’s made.

by Harnesslink Media with files from Standardbred Canada