The frozen paddocks of upstate New York are a long way from the sweltering devastation of Puerto Rico.

At the ReRun adoption and retraining facility in East Greenbush, New York, about 40 miles south of Saratoga Springs — where the temperature was 2 degrees Fahrenheit (-17 degrees C) on a recent morning, a nine-year-old U.S. racing expat waits for the mercury to rise so that he can have surgery to repair his fractured splint bones, the next step in a long journey that began when Toy Cannon was foaled in New York, diverted to Puerto Rico a little more than a year ago, and headed for a happy ending when he was one of the lucky horses to be rescued from Camarero Race Track after Hurricane Maria practically destroyed the island.

“Even before the storm, he was on our watch list,” said Kelley Stobie, co-founder and vice president of Caribbean Thoroughbred Aftercare. “After the storm, we went to all the barns and contacted as many trainers as we could. There were no roofs on the barns and horses were out in the elements.”

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Toy Cannon and Jose Bello. Used with permission

Toy Cannon at ReRun. Photo courtesy of Lisa Molloy and Kelley Stobie.