It makes a change from his hell-raising days. Asked about the seemingly apocryphal story that he had once knocked out a horse in Panama City, Durán makes a clear distinction. “I knocked him down,” Durán says with the credibility of a connoisseur in violent punching. In November 1969, after his 15th pro bout and aged 18, he was offered a bet – $100 and a bottle of whisky if he could flatten a horse with a single punch. Durán says he was reluctant to hurt the animal but, spurred on by a girlfriend and already drunk, he took the bet. The horse went down from a stunning left hook. It got up but Durán’s damaged hand had to be stitched up without anaesthetic. He didn’t care: “The girl was kissing me and I was drinking the whisky I won. I didn’t feel a thing.”
Great story about Roberto Duran - is he a gas head?