'Roll Cyrus Roll' Children's Book Tells The Tale Of Colt Who Couldn't Roll
REISTERSTOWN, Md. (WJZ) -- It's Preakness week in Baltimore and some of the finest thoroughbred horses in the country are in town.
But, one local horse has an international following for something he can't do.
Last summer, in the middle of the pandemic, we told you about a colt named Cyrus.
In those dark times, his antics were bringing a much-needed bit of fun.
You see Cyrus, who lives on Reisterstown's Mantua Farm, couldn't figure out how to do what usually comes naturally to horses. We're talking about rolling.
Generally you bathe a horse, turn him or her out and the first thing they'll do is roll in dirt or sand. Maybe it feels good, maybe it's because they don't like feeling clean, but it's instinct.
But last summer, when Cyrus was just a colt, he could not figure out how to roll.
"He basically had what I would describe as a meltdown where he was rearing in the air and kicking and bucking and he just couldn't comprehend how you get all the way to the ground where everyone else was," one of his caretakers, Chris Brown said.
Chris found it so charming he took a video and posted it to Twitter. Within hours it went viral. Soon thousands of people from the U.K. to Australia and seven other countries began following Cyrus's attempts to roll. The hashtag #RollCyrusRoll was everywhere.
Chris offered to send out Cyrus Christmas cards and got hundreds of requests. That led him to the idea of making a children's book.
He wrote the story and his college roommate did the illustrations and 'Roll Cyrus Roll' sold out its first printing on Amazon within a week.
A second printing is now available.
All the while people continued to check in every day.
One woman messaged Chris to say, "my husband just got home from work. He didn't ask me how my day was he asked me, did Cyrus roll today?"
Children asked parents, parents asked Chris and everyone was anxiously waiting for Cyrus to master this simple maneuver.
Cyrus is now a yearling. WJZ went to the farm this past weekend to meet Cyrus and find out if he has rolled.
Did he? You'll have to watch the video to find out.
Through it all the most important thing is, in a time of such misery Cyrus gave people something to look forward to, to follow.
"I think that's why I kept doing it is the amount of people that would get home from work, send me a message and feel better because of comical 'Cyrus the Virus'.
If you're interested in the book, you might like to know that part of the proceeds go to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, a non-profit making sure race horses that no longer race are taken care of.
Does Cyrus know what a start he's become? Nobody knows
But, Alice Peirce, the Mantua Farm manager said she knows what a star he's become and "the pressure of keeping Cyrus healthy and happy is weighing on us, but we're up for it!"