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Unfortunately, the colt’s record was no more winning than his owner’s. Trump (the man) demanded that Trump (the horse) race immediately, against the advice of its trainer. After a bug swept through the horse’s stable in Florida, Trump, in an early display of his penchant for downplaying viruses, demanded that DJ keep training. (Interestingly, though he would later promote the equine dewormer Ivermectin to treat humans for COVID, he did not prescribe this horse medicine for an actual horse.)

Much like the Kennedy Center, which hemorrhaged ticket buyers and performing artists after being tarnished by Trump’s name, a curse befell the horse formerly known as Alibi. Because of Trump’s insistence that it keep training, the ill-fated steed would never race: it became infected with the virus and lost circulation in his forelegs. Eerily, a similar affliction would someday strike his namesake.