When former New York Giants’ placekicker Younghoe Koo fully missed the ball on a subject aim try towards the New England Patriots final December, the broadcasters weren’t the one ones laughing.
Mark Toothaker, a stallion gross sales supervisor for Spendthrift Farm in Lexington, Kentucky, was on the sofa cracking up together with his spouse, Malory, in regards to the whiffed subject aim and consequential turnover.
Then, he felt one thing unusual.
“I felt a shock in my left arm, after which I by no means felt the rest. Had no ache, something after that,” Toothaker stated.
He did not get up for 25 minutes and was instructed on the hospital that he suffered a seizure.
Docs additionally revealed the stunning information that he had a mind tumor the scale of a tennis ball.
Fortunately, his spouse Malory is a nurse.
“Simply occurred at completely the best place if it needed to occur,” Toothaker stated. “I may have died, I imply, I am on the street on a regular basis.”
The tumor was benign, and Toothaker was house from the hospital after a whirlwind 24 hours.
However as he ready for this yr’s Kentucky Derby, the place he hoped to be within the winner’s circle with Spendthrift’s horse, Additional Ado, he nonetheless thought of Koo, and the whiff that led to the tumor’s discovery.
Toothaker reached out to the kicker, who made the Professional Bowl and led the NFL in factors with Atlanta in 2020.
“I would like to have him come to the races, or come go to Spendthrift,” Toothaker stated previous to Saturday’s race. “If he desires to go racing, we’ll go racing. If he desires to return out and see the mares and foals, it would be my honor to return out and present him round this lovely farm that now we have right here in Lexington, Kentucky.”
Additional Ado in the end completed Saturday’s Derby in eleventh place.
