Trust the Process

It takes the time it takes for a horse to find its new home.

One of the most challenging aspects about reschooling a horse is trusting the process. 

What process?  

• Picking a quality horse as a prospective candidate.
• Addressing the horse’s needs from a body, spirit, and mind perspective.
• Figuring out what the horse enjoys doing.  
• Finding the person seeking a horse with those apptitudes and horsenality.
• Hoping that you will get back some, all, or more of the money you have invested in the horse’s care, treatments, and training to be able to afford to repeat the process.

Which takes us back to the question of how long it takes to reschool a horse. The long answer is a lifetime. Horses never quit learning. In the wild their survival depends on it. In the domesticated world, their status does. Herd hierarchy is established by a combination of intelligence, reflexes, and moxy. The same is true when one of the herd members has only two legs. Horses are either being trained or training us. We are in for a rough ride, figuratively and literally, if we forget that. We often do, however. That’s why for most people, it takes several lifetimes to become a horseman.

The short answer is: It depends. What learning does the horse bring to the MMSC? How does it respond to when exposed to new things? How long will it stay with us? Many horses have departed without completing the entire Horse Centered Reschooling Program. That is because there are many experienced trainers, owners, and riders, each with their own valid ways of reschooling an off-track Thoroughbred. Thank goodness! So many OTTBs out there need new jobs and homes! The key word here is “experienced.” At the MMSC, the amount of reschooling any one of our horses has or does not have must be balanced at the time of adoption by the expertise of the rider, and if not that, than the expertise of the rider/trainer team. “Green on green makes  black and blue,” the saying goes. The idea of adopters getting hurt is not savory, but the reality of MMSC horses incurring physical, mental or emotional damage because of a lack of faith in the process on my part is totally unacceptable. Thoroughbreds have been commodities since the moment they were conceived. Those that come into MMSC care get to choose their preferred career path as well as their future partners.

Misunderstood on the track,
Astro found his perfect match!

The pat answer is: 45 days on average. Better to have 60. Best to have 90. Generally speaking, with the average Thoroughbred and the average adopter, the average time it takes to expose a horse to the rudimentary basics of our program, all five phases of it, is 45 days. This does not mean that the horse has mastered the skills we have taught it any more than I would be fluent in Mandarin after six weeks of study. What it does mean is the horse has a foundation on which a new career can be built. It means that it has begun showing us its aptitudes. It means that we have a good idea of who the ideal partner might be for this horse.

All of which brings me back to where we started: the greatest challenge to reschooling a horse is to trust the process, no matter how long or short it takes. I have adopted horses out in as little as 24 hours. Others have been with me for over a year. The longer a horse stays, the more expenses it accrues, the more eyebrows are raised about the initial selection of the horse, the way it has been trained, the adopters I may have turned down because the fit wasn’t right. At such times it is so tempting to become a horse trader. Money for feed, horse shoes, or the water bill. Large numbers of horses adopted per month impresses our board and our donors. Why not let people find out on their own that the horse has vices, a lack of manners, or a hole in its knowledge? Why not keep our mouths shut when we see that the rider’s riding style or personality is going to cause relationship problems down the road? Why open ourselves to the very real dangers of liability by letting people ride our horses at all? Other adoption organizations don’t.

My best defense to all of this, is to trust the process. Each horse has needs that must be addressed. Each adopter does too. We are not dealing in commodities. We are dealing in souls, two and four legged. Our job here at the MMSC is to be of service to both, no matter what the temptations to cave in to money shortages or the status of high adoption rates. It has been my experience, that all will work out as it should be, in the time that it takes, if we have faith in the process.

Cheery bye,
Susanna

It you trust the process, things always end up exactly as they should!

It Depends

"How long does it take to reschool a horse?” 

I hear that question constantly.

The answer?  

“It depends.” 

 On what?  So many things! When I go to assess a horse, I don’t have a lot of concrete things to go by. I get a phone call. I am asked if I would look at a horse that is “nice, quiet and sound.” I listen as best I can between the lines because two leggeds tend to fall into categories. There are horse traders who won’t tell you all; “barn blind” types who are biased as grandparents about their “babies;” and those who simply don’t know: farm mangers, bloodstock agents, friends of friends who have heard about a horse, but don’t know much about it other than it needs a new job and home. I get a few details, sex, size, injury history--maybe. If the horse intrigues me and is within driving distance, I make an appointment to visit it at a racetrack, a training center, a barn, a field. Sometimes the horses are spanking clean, sometimes caked in mud. Either way, I start at the head. With the eye. It’s got to be good. Ideally with lots of intelligence and soul, although horses, like people sometimes take time to develop the look of  “someone,” as smarts and character often are acquired in the school of hard knocks. Mostly, however, I look at youngsters. There you see innocence and tentativeness, sometimes cockiness, a good sign for prospective event horses. Gentleness. Curiosity. Emotionalism. It depends. Above all, however, mystery. Eyes can give you a peek into a horse’s soul, but not a true understanding of its workings. That comes later when you start training, asking the horse questions, giving it choices.

I work my fingers in the mouth. (How defensive is a horse about this? Always of interest.) Glimpse the teeth, the thickness of the tongue. Feel with my fist the breadth of the jaw. Run my hands up and down the neck, shoulders, back, loins, rump, legs. I pick up feet. I pinch tendons and ligaments. I test acupressure points. I move joints around to gauge mobility and listen for odd internal crunches. I step back and take in the over all picture: Are there three sections--front end, back, and hind end--all more or less equal? Is the rump higher? What’s the angle of the shoulder? Is the neck high or low set?  These relationships are telling.

I then watch the horse move away from me, towards me, past me. I study its motion from the standpoint of physics: levers and fulcrums. I look for hitches and flow. I also watch how the horse behaves vis à vis its handler. What does it think about two leggeds? I want to see the horse trot. The rear end is really important to me.  Second only to the eye. Ideally it is washer woman big. It should put JLo to shame.

Circumstances for assessing a horse are rarely ideal. Nobody has lot of time: Not the trainer, not the handler, nor me, and the horses are restive. Loose horses in the field run off. Horses at the track skedaddle sideways, rear, prance, yank at the chain shanks that run over their tongues or against their gums. If the horse is in another state, still shots and some short videos are all I have to go by. Luckily I don’t need to see much: Just a flash of brilliance. I look for the action of those fulcrum and levers--how do they propel the horse? Are there signs of lameness? What about unevenness? It doesn’t take much -- a stride or two, and I have a good idea of what the horse might want to do in its next career. Once all this new information is in my brain, it is time to check in with my gut, which I have learned over the years is very savvy, indeed. In fact, there are more neurotransmitters in the gut than there are in the brain so it makes sense, and is wise, to listen to it. 

Horses, if accepted, come to the MMSC on a two week trial basis. This is when the true sleuthing begins. Is there physical or mental baggage to unpack? What imaginary demons or real demons might be stowaways from the horse’s racetrack journey? What is the horse saying: in the stall, the field, the ring? If the horse is uneven, which most horses are, like most people, which is NOT the same things as being lame, then how can they be leveled out? Optimal performance is dependent on optimal balance. All that is askew must be set straight before training begins. 

Then what happens? Psychoanalysis. Bomb-proofing. Groundwork. Ringwork. Open work. In short, the Horse Centered Reschooling Program.  

And how long does that take? 

Of course, it depends. On every horse. In every situation. 

But, there is sort of an answer, and more to come on all of that. I promise!

                                                         

            Cheery bye,

                           Susanna

Lack of Fair Play  

Tim Capps knows a lot about Thoroughbreds. Former editor and publisher of the Thoroughbred Record (which is when I first met him, some 27 years ago), Executive Vice President of the Maryland Jockey Club, Executive Vice President of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association, Vice President of Matchmaker Racing Services, Director of Operations for the Jockey Club, and current Director of the Equine Studies Program in the College of Business  at the University of Louisville, he ought to. His students love him for all the reasons I do: He’s scary smart, wry funny, and he plays fair. Take as an illustration his comment on my Normandy Farm blog entry. “Having known Mr. Ryan along the way, I warmed up to the Normandy piece quickly, only wincing slightly at your omission of Fair Play as part of the Man o’ War production team while understanding your motivation in focusing on the feminine portion.”

Clever and gracious way of pointing out my egregious lack of Fair Play, no? 

Fair Play is the SIRE of the mighty Man o’ War! His grave, marked by a life size bronze replica of him, now green with verdigris, is the focal point of the Normandy Farm cemetery. His last owner, Joseph Widener erected the monument in 1929 to salute the stallion’s extraordinary influence on the breed, for he sired not only Man o’ War but also an unheard amount of 18% stakes winners--an amazing statistic for sire potency when these days 10% is considered top class. His influence continues to this day: 60% of all American Thoroughbreds are related to him. Maybe I forgot to mention him because I am a mom and thus my sympathies lay with Mahubah, Man o’ War’s dam?  Either that, or I was distracted by the weird family connection. I recognized the pink granite slab covering Mahubah came from the quarry on the island in Maine where my mother lives. Either way, it was mindless omission.

Horse traders, on the other hand, specialize in mindful omissions. There is no such thing as a perfect horse. Besides, the merits of any horse are subjective--so why criticize what might turn out to be another man’s treasure? Best leave most unsaid and let the buyer beware. You sell a lot more horses that way.

I am a lousy horse trader. Always have been. Always will be. I let everything I know about my horses, good or bad, out of the bag. Call it the T.M.I. (too much information) school of horse sales. T.M.I.  kills a sale. But, in my mind, that’s the only way to be fair to a horse.

I probably was a shadchan, a Jewish matchmaker, in a former life. When I get a horse into the MMSC, I want to find out all that I can about its horsenality (a wonderful term coined by the brilliant horse whisperer, Pat Parelli), its way of perceiving the world, how it goes about making decisions and choices. What does the horse want to be when it grows up: hunter, eventer, dressage competitor, therapy horse, or b.f.f?  The more riding techniques the horse is introduced to, the more it reveals its likes and dislikes, the better chances therefore of making the perfect match. 

Selecting suitable two leggeds is trickier. They are not as transparent. That's why potential adopters start by filling out application forms, submitting three references, and providing photographs of where their horses will reside, indoors and out. Once this information is assembled, it is sent to the MMSC board’s Approval Committee which consists of three people, a horse breeder and owner, a veterinarian, and a bloodstock agent. If approved, the next step is the meeting face to face at the MMSC. Does the adopter like the horse? More, importantly in my book, does the horse like the adopter? You see, people are like horse traders. You don't often get the full story. They might bill themselves as great riders and sympathetic horse people, seasoned trainers. Get them around and on a horse, however, and the bluff, if there is one, will be up. That's because horses,(most horses, anyway) are straight shooters. They cut to the chase quickly.  Make their dislikes apparent, usually very graciously. (After all they could, if they so choose, really level us!) And they are so forgiving with our inability to comprehend them, or our refusal to listen to them. In other words, horses are rarely guilty of a mindless or a mindful lack of fair play.

Cheery bye,

Susanna

Let Down and New Friends

The racetrack is an unnatural place for a horse. For starters it lives in what amounts to solitary confinement--a 12x12 stall most of the day. This is a challenge for a herd animal that is nomadic by nature and more social than a coterie of girls at a slumber party. Not only that, at the tender ages of 2, 3, or 4 years of age, a colt or filly will burst with the excess energy and bravado of puberty. A diet high in calories and protein, along with who knows what cocktails, legitimate or not, and one has concocted a perfect recipe for boredom, neurosis, or, ideally, a cut-throat competitive spirit. 

The lifestyle serves its purposes--all athletes sacrifice much to be at the top of their games--and race horses are no exception, and what a thrill when they do rise to their raising, live up to or beyond their pedigrees, their training, and discover within themselves a love of running and an extraordinary will to win!

But like athletes or veterans of any kind when their combative days are done, racehorses need time to get over the physical pains and mental challenges they have experienced. They need a “let down” period to learn how to be, once again, just horses. To interact and frolic with their own kind. To find their places in the herd hierarchy (what most lay people call the “pecking order.”) To laze, graze and meander at will.

That is why I am so grateful to the generous souls in the Bluegrass who welcome MMSC candidates for let down on their farms. These people open their fields to my horses. They lend their expertise. They give of their time, their labour, their feed and hay. I pay nothing. They do it because they love the sport of racing and the Thoroughbred. They know how much these horses give and they want to give back.

That’s why Ben Berger, manager of  his parents’190 acre Woodstock Farm on the Old Frankfort Pike, does it. A graduate of Amherst College in Massachusetts, he could have been anything. He took a stab at banking and legal work in Manhattan after college, but he says he is not a “coat and tie guy,” and looking at his blocky frame one would say not--a linebacker, maybe? (“Yes, I played football in high school and college,” he admits.) Or a farm manager. You need heft for that--enduring long days tending to horses, late nights waiting for mares to foal. Crises arise--weather flukes, labor headaches, managerial snafus, equipment failures, money shortages.

Despite all of these challenges, Ben has agreed to foster until mid February two horses I have selected for the spring MMSC class. Although I had talked to him on the phone and visited his farm, I had not yet met him in person. I have come today to check on two geldings, Reggie and Chris, which I have not seen since before Christmas, to thank Ben in person for taking care of them, and to make a new friend.

He is in the aisle of the broodmare barn with the vet, who is checking mares for pregnancies. Ben is taking notes--left handed -- on an electronic pad. Despite the raw wind, his bald head is bare, his stubble flecked cheeks are rosy. He reminds me of the big pink granite boulders that rebuff the sea from the forested shore line of Deer Isle, Maine where my mother lives. I love those boulders. I find myself liking Ben. 

“I am in the horse industry,” Ben tells me when I ask him why he wanted to help the MMSC. “These horses do so much for us and I figure I should do what I can for them. If I hear of a horse that has been on this farm, or was a client’s or is a horse I have known, and it needs help or a home, I want to be there for it if I can. I’ll find it a home--but it has to be a good one. I don’t want to give a horse away to just anybody and find that it has ended up in a situation of neglect or abuse. I do not want to see any horse suffer. I know this is not a popular opinion, but if I cannot find a good home for a horse, and I have done all I can do, I would prefer to humanely euthanize it than it ever running the risk of its falling into bad hands.”

I understand. 

When finished with the vet, Ben leads me over to another barn to take a look at Reggie and Chris. They look fatter, woolier, and a whole lot muddier than when they were at the track. They also are much more relaxed and friendlier too.

Bobby, the farmhand who has been feeding them daily asks me if the horses had been turned out together for a long time before they came to Woodstock.

“No, they were at the track.” I say. “Why?”

“Because they act like best friends. They are real attached. They even like to eat out of the same feed tub.”

New friends! I smile. Reggie and Chris are well on their way to learning how to become  horses again. Thank you, Bobby. Thank you, Ben. Thank Woodstock Farm for this fabulous “let down.” 

Cheery bye,

Susanna

The First "Why?"

                                 
“Why do you close during the winter?”

That’s a “why?” I get a lot.

There are several reasons:

1.   “Divots, demolition, and excrement.” Surely you remember this statement from an earlier blog? A handful of horses wreaks havoc on a paddock. Constant grazing and traffic denudes a field in record time transforming it into a dust bowl or a sea of mud depending on the skies. No green grass means forking out greenbacks from MMSC coffers for hay and feed. I don’t like that. Moreover, dustbowls crack feet; mud seas suck off shoes. Either way the farrier bill rises. Hence, best to let the pastures rest. And better yet, to nurture them, by aerating, fertilizing and sowing seed if at all possible.

2. Cold weather and frozen footing. One of the lovely things about getting older is that you have made so many mistakes, some of them, alas, more than once, that you have an idea of how to behave in certain circumstances. There was a time you couldn’t keep me from getting on a horse, no matter how foul the weather--North Pole temps, rain, or snow. No more. Aches, pains, and stiffnesses have set in to my body with a predictable familiarity. Like the irascible elderly relatives at the holiday dinner, I do my best to humor them to avoid unpleasantness. That means I stay inside when the temps drop below 40 or the wind or rain picks up. I want none of riding at these times, most especially not on a cocky youngster bursting with joie de vivre or naughtiness. Nor am I alone in this predilection: volunteers and interns, I have found, are scarce come winter.

3. Time and energy vortex.  It’s a fact (unless you have staff): For every hour you spend in the saddle, you spend three times that on the ground. Caring for a horse is like tending a two year old child: so many needs, so much vigilance. When the barn at the MMSC is full of horses, it is like being the parent of multiple sets of triplets and quadruplets, all under age 5. It’s time consuming and energy zapping. So much forthing and backing, so many meals, so much poop. It takes all day to get through the day. This is a problem because our mission is two pronged: Teach ex-race horses new skill sets; teach people how versatile and valuable Thoroughbreds are in new careers. Our doors are open to visitors and interns. Our calendars fill with open houses and seminars. We host school groups and volunteer orientations. This takes brainstorming and planning and come the eddies of spring when horses arrive on campus and the barn vortex starts churning, there is precious little time for thinking past anything other than daily survival. 

4. There’s a business to run. The MMSC is blessed with supporters who give their time and their services and when they can, their goods, without which we simply could not operate. I am very grateful for these gifts. But although the MMSC is, in many ways, a dreamy place to work, in the light of day, there are bills to pay, everything from the equine dentist to the water bill, the copier lease to the garbage pickup. You think a teenage boy can pack away food? Try feeding a young Thoroughbred! Your family footwear bill is steep? MMSC shoeing invoices run $500 a month! Therefore, until genetically modified plants start growing US tender or I reach the end one of the rainbows I have had the privilege of glimpsing, I must garner cash the old fashioned way: fundraising, one letter, one phone call, one visit at a time.

5. Last, but not least:  There are new friends to meet. I have told you about the vortex and survival mode. Neither lend themselves well to friend-raising. Yet there are so many kindred spirits out there: in and beyond the racing industry; people who love Thoroughbreds for all the right reasons--their beauty, nobility, strength and vulnerability. I want to invite these people to become friends and family members of the MMSC  and I need time and freedom to find them.

Which is why the MMSC is “closed” during the winter, although it could be argued that our dormancy is when we are most open to what the new year will bring.

Cheery bye,

Susanna

Looking horses, part 2

NORMANDY FARM

My heart was already upbeat, being that it was the first time in the new year that I was going to look for candidates for the MMSC’s spring class. But to have the first call of the year come from NORMANDY FARM! That was a God thing.

As a three year old living in New York, I began expressing an interest in horses.  My parents claimed it was my Kentucky genes because my father was born in Lexington. Who knew that I would live there someday?

I was 14 the first time I went to Normandy Farm.  I’ll never forget passing through the stone pillars and seeing at the end of the entrance a farmhouse with triangular dormers and windows with shudders. White plank fences framed the drive on either side, beyond which were fields with horses, large and small.

E. Barry Ryan, the owner, met us at the front door: A big man with a comfortable belly, his chestnut and silver mane slicked back part-less from his forehead, his handshake was firm, his hug encompassing. His voice boomed and when he laughed you could see the gap between his protruding front teeth. He wore a crest ring and his initials-E.R.B.- were monogrammed on his cuffs. He was a trainer and a breeder of Thoroughbreds.  

All of us are given angels in our lives: people who understand us, even though we may not understand ourselves, people who believe in us when we have little or no faith in ourselves, people who open windows for us when doors are closed.  Barry Ryan was such a person for me, and the angelic realm from which he operated was Normandy Farm.  Over the next ten years, I went back to Normandy twice more, the last time being in 1983 when I decided to move to Kentucky to live my dream: a life with horses.

So it’s January 2013, and here I was again, driving through those pillars, down that drive, passing the white farm house, to the famous “Normandy” barn with a central rounded clock tower, flanked by stalls with Dutch doors. The roof, like so many castles in France is tiled with slate, and along the rise and ridge of it, animals--fox, cats, roosters--made of porcelain in a factory in France, cavorted here and there. Joseph E. Widener, owner of Elmendorf Farm from which Normandy was split off, had built the barn in 1927. According to legend, Mr. Widener was downed as a pilot in enemy territory in France during the first World War and hid for three days and nights in the clock tower of a barn. Counting each hourly strike, he swore, should he ever go free, he would build a replica of that barn on his farm in Kentucky.  

On this windy, unseasonably warm January day, Mrs. Nancy Polk, the current owner of Normandy stood by that barn that Mr. Widener built. Beside her was farm manager J.R. .Sebastian and a Mexican groom who held a beautifully turned out 16.2, 8 year old dark bay gelding named PromiseI’llbeHome.

Mrs. Polk, a former resident from Michigan, got into racing some twenty years ago, Recently retired at the time, and a fan of the sport who regularly came to the races in Lexington, she thought that maybe she ought to buy a farm.  She saw Normandy in 1997, and that was it. She has loved it and been its steward every since. She bred, raised and raced Promise as she has done with so many of her horses. A year ago, she thought he had had enough. “I brought him home, and turned him out,” she told me, “And I would keep him  here forever, but he is sound and I think he would be so much happier if he had a job.”

A brief look over at this well proportioned, elegant horse made me think that she was right. 

“OOOO!!! Tall, dark, handsome fellow!” I told Promise as I stepped beside him and stroked his soft, elegant neck. Conformation, feet, joints, back, hindquarters,  eyes, teeth, movement, and “horsenality,” all passed my assessment with flying colors.  

“I think he is a fine candidate for the MMSC, I told Mrs. Polk. “We will welcome him in mid February.” 

She beamed. 

Before leaving, I had one more thing I wanted to do: Have a moment to myself at the horse cemetery, which Mrs. Polk graciously granted me. I had always loved paying my respects to the long gone Thoroughbreds there, lingering a little longer over the ones Barry had raced, and standing in respectful silence before the pink granite slab that covers Mahubah, dam of Man O‘War. 

As I turned to get back in my car, a band of yearlings bounded to the fence directly across from the cemetery. Bucking and colliding. skidding to a stop,  mud-riddled, they shook their tousled manes at me, nostrils flaring, curious eyes wide upon me. 

I laughed and greeted them all.  How time passes yet remains the same!  At Normandy Farm, once again, I had come full circle. 

Cheery bye,

Susanna

Looking at Horses-part one

In January I look at horses. That’s when the MMSC campus is empty (or almost empty- Zeke and Louie, Sam and Jasper are still in residence) Come March, the barn is a bustle all day with clopping incoming and outgoing hooves, jovial chatter amongst interns and volunteers, tractor gears grinding, weed-eaters whacking, and curious, questioning visitors ambling from office to barn and back. It’s hard to leave.

I have never been able to get firm numbers from those who seemingly are supposed to know how many former race horses are out there: The Jockey Club, The Blood Horse, Churchill Downs, and the like. That’s because the sum is exponential. Give or take thirty thousand Thoroughbred foals registered every year. Multiply that by 28 years, a reasonable life span for a horse. Do whatever math you are supposed to do, subtracting some here and there if you must, and the answer is:  A LOT OF HORSES.

The MMSC has 14 acres of paddocks and ten stalls. Books say that you should allot about 1.5 to 2 acres per horse. We have had as many as 18 horses at one time. Books aside, I can tell you that is too many. That's 200 hours of  grass consumption, 500 pounds of manure production, and umpteen hundred new divots unearthed ON A DAILY BASIS! 

Divots, demolition, and excrement aside, none deter me from looking at horses. Why?  One: Because that is what I do at the MMSC. I seek out the best, most athletic exemplars of the Thoroughbred breed whose racing careers are over-or never began- put them into a 90 day training reschooling program (those of you over 50, think Berlitz) and then exercise my matchmaking sensibilities to find suitable homes for MMSC graduates. And, two: Looking at horses is fun. 

Today particularly so, as it was my first “road trip” of the year. To put that in perspective for non-horsey readers: I am a chocoholic. I could probably dine on chocolate mousse for a long time before I grew weary of it. But the first bite of the first mousse of the year is nothing short of heavenly. And so it is with my first trip of the year to look at horses: It makes me out of this world happy. My heart starts swelling, first with a chirp growing louder, building to Alleluia chorus proportions with a joyous song of PURPOSE. And at that moment I know am doing what I was put on the planet to do. What could be better than that?

Cheery bye,

            
 Susanna

Mise-en-scène 

When I was thirteen and living in Paris, France with my family, I had, courtesy of my far-thinking parents, a subscription to the famous French state theatre, La Comédie Française. Once a month, on a Saturday afternoon throughout the season, my brother  and I would head as a twosome for the Rue de Richelieu in the swish first arrondissement near the Louvre, pass through the pillared portals of the illustrious 18th century building of the theater, climb the broad red carpeted stairs of the foyer to the oppulent hall lit with crystal chandeers and slip into our burgundy velvet covered seats for an afternoon of French dramatic brilliance.

I did not grow up knowing French, and at the time, my speaking skills were limited to the words necessary to navigate a strict French girl’s school. In the language of Molière, Racine, and Beaumarchais, to name a few of the great French playwrights, I often got disoriented and sometimes downright lost. 

That’s why I kept the play’s program open in my lap to the “mise-en-scène” page. Those words literally mean literally “put in the scene” and, in the theatre refer to the setting and backdrop of the story about be to told. It also included a list of the play’s characters, with a short description of who they were and what their relationships were to one another. When addled by the rapid fire French, I found that page really helpful. That's why I want to give you a  MMSC mise-en-scène page now.  Maybe you will need it in those future rapid fire blog moments. 

Mise-en-scène

LOCATION: The Maker’s Mark Secretariat Center, a 22 acre non profit facility dedicated to the reschooling of athletic off the track racehorses, located at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington,KY.

Campus consists of office building, one ten stall barn. One equipment shed. One 180X100 outdoor arena. one round pen, one Hitchcock free jumping pen. 11 paddocks (each individually named  i.e“The Lakeview Paddock, the Back 40”) dispersed over 14 acres. One pond. One forested sinkhole (former dueling ground in the 1800s). 

Current CAST:  

Susanna Thomas, aka “Mother Superior,” MMSC Director since 2008

Lori Tobin: aka “Mother Inferior” and, when Susanna is feeling generous, “Mother SENSATIONAL.” Volunteer office manager, attorney and college instructor in real life, Lori is M.A.’s older sister.

Marialyce Gradek:  Book keeper, PAID ( a rare privilege at the MMSC) comes once a week for a few hours, mother of triplets, age 10, hence aka “M.A.” Lori’s younger sister.

Sam: Male cat, approximately nine months old, creme caramel colored, aka. “The Lover.”

Jasper:  Male cat, probably Sam’s brother, so also approximately nine months old, tuxedo coat, aka “The Hunter.”

Ezekial,  aka “Zeke the Geek,” 4 year old gelding, not adopted in 2012.

Midwest Swing: aka “Louie,”  5 year old gelding, not adopted in 2012.

Felix:  My 2006 Golden Chevy Equinox

ANGELS: This is a whole separate cast in itself.

Sneak preview though:  Archangel Dave.  You will want to read all about him!

Cheery bye,

 Susanna