Older Horses: Meteor Shot and Melissa

 Meteor Shot, or “Shooter,” like Bordeaux Bandit, is ten years old. He’s a Louisiana bred horse with 24 starts, 4 wins, 4 seconds, and 4 thirds and a total earnings of $27,615. I first became aware of him in 2011, when his owner contacted the MMSC and asked if we would accept him into our program.

I studied the photographs she sent, particularly the head shot. He had a good eye: inquisitive and well intentioned. His videos showed an even trot and a balanced canter. His vet records were clean. I liked him. I told her to send him.

Melissa DeCarlo Recknor was working for me at the time. She had already adopted an MMSC horse, Fly Lite. Melissa liked Shooter too. He was compact and diminutive (15.3). He could be brilliant on the flat and over fences. He was willing to try anything that was asked of him. Smart and personable, curious and inventive, he liked to explore the world, interacting with all the people and things he encountered. He could be demanding and pushy at times, and was “race tracky” tense under saddle, but his sparkly personality won Melissa and the rest of us over. He made us laugh. He was Robin Williams with four legs.  

Those qualities were noticed by a circus tiger tamer who came to the MMSC as the guest of one of our board members at the time. Daniel was Argentinian from a five generation circus family. As a young boy, he knew that he wanted to train big cats. His father tried to dissuade him, telling him that they were difficult to work with and very, very dangerous. But Daniel, age nine, won his father over when he taught five barn cats to walk a tight rope, one leaping over the other as they inched across. He received a baby tiger on his tenth birthday. By the time he was 16, Daniel had his own act and was touring in Europe.

In his 40’s now, Daniel was thinking about retirement. He had bought some land in Florida and was going to start a business there teaching people how to trick train animals. In particular he wanted to have a herd of former racehorses. He was looking for his first acquisition. I was intrigued by the idea of the TB troupe, but guarded.

So I asked another one of our board members, Nina Bonnie, and her husband Ned, both of whom are lifelong horsemen to help me decide. We met Daniel at the backstage of the circus.

“Let me show you my cats!” he said, eyes gleaming with love and pride. The tigers had fenced paddocks with dens and “swimming pools” in which some were basking. When Daniel called each by name, it raised its head, came over and rubbed the sides of its face back and forth against the grill, purring.

Having my two sons is definitely the most exciting experience of my life, but being inches from a 500 pound tiger’s head and hearing it purr is probably the second. This is not the chintzy rumble of a house cat! A tiger’s purr is like the swell of the sea washing up on a broad sandy beach, breathy and majestic. 

Suffice it to say after we saw how Daniel worked with and kept his cats, indeed how all the circus animals were cared for, the three of us came away convinced us that we should let Daniel adopt Shooter. After all, Daniel’s retirement was nigh. Shooter would soon have a farm in Florida to go to.

Melissa was not pleased and none one of my assurances assuaged her concerns.  

“Circuses are not natural places for horses.”

“Neither are racetracks. Or show circuits. Shooter will be well cared for and soon will have a permanent home in Florida as the first TB in a special troupe that heralds the breed. It could lead to something very interesting.”

Well, Shooter did make it to Florida. But Daniel didn’t because life has a way of getting in the way of our best laid plans. When I learned in 2014 that Shooter needed a new home, I said we would take him back.

Shooter returned knowing some fun tricks, but also very needy. Not that he physically wanted for anything. He looked fine, but turn out in a field alone for over a year with scant interaction with people other than those who fed him whilst Daniel was on the road had taken a toll on him. Once back at the MMSC and reintroduced to a group of horses he became herd bound, to the point of having panic attacks when separated.

As I said in the last blog, the most difficult challenge with older horses if they are sound is dealing with the baggage in their hearts and minds. Shooter came back tense and nervous, which, along with his age, made him unadoptable by the end of our season. He needed time and a very special person. So I called Melissa and asked her if she would foster him for the winter.

 “I decided to foster him because well, you convinced me,” Melissa responded when I asked her recently. “I loved him when I first met him three years before, and I played around with the idea of adopting him when he came back last year I but just couldn't afford a horse in addition to Fly. When you approached me about fostering for two months, and he had nowhere else to go, however, I knew I had to do it.”

She took it slowly with him at first—stopping when he seemed nervous—building his trust. Under her care, Shooter bloomed. So much so I suggested that she take him to a few schooling shows—that the MMSC would pay for—because I knew they would help boost his confidence and make him, as he was already coming from behind being an older nervous horse, more adoptable if he did well.

Melissa agreed. “I thought showing would do several things for Shooter. The first was to let him get out and see what it's like to get off the farm and come back to your friends. The second, letting other people see how wonderful he really is.

"He took his first show, Snowbird, WAY better than I thought he would. He got off the trailer, hung out with his friends, walked down and into the rings and really relaxed! We came home with two seconds and a third amongst decent competition.

"After that I had high expectations, but the Paul Frazier show really rattled his brain. The Horse Park is tricky - horses either don't mind the "Dressage bowl" [the KHP's Dressage complex] or they hate it...he hated it. He hacked around the night before with his friends like a champ but it had been quiet and warm and his friends were right by his side. In the morning, however, it was very chilly. There were horses EVERYWHERE, tons of traffic and only Fly to keep him company, and Fly was honestly much more interested in eating the grass than babysitting her little brother. He lost it. I thought we would have to scratch but then I remembered - he would much rather be contained in a ring than out in the open. So I got up on Shooter right before I needed to go in and went straight into the ring without warming up. MAGIC. Although he was still nervous, he felt so much better, almost like "OK I understand what I am supposed to do now". We completed both dressage tests - they weren't pretty but we stayed in the ring, which was a major accomplishment considering what the morning started out like. 

"Then our jumping time came - he had horses warming up above him, horses jumping in the ring in front of him and horses coming and going left and right. So, I decided to do the same thing except that when we entered the ring, Shooter spun and left...running sideways back to the barn. At this point,I could have stayed on and MADE him do it but why when he was SO CLEARLY NERVOUS and not being bad? I decided that he had tried really hard and needed to chill. So I brought him back to his stall, put some liniment and wraps on his legs and let him calm down. Sure enough, he laid down and took a nap. He wasn't being bad or naughty, he was being nervous and insecure. So we went back to square one - trust.

"Back at the farm, I am continuing to work on his confidence - he is SO unsure of himself that he gets nervous when he is being ridden by himself or asked to do anything that he doesn't know. I take him on walks with no tack, just a halter and lead rope by himself. We walk around the fields, over the xc jumps, in the arena and all over the farm so he knows that even if I take him away from his friends I expect him to work and then he can return to the barn. 

"I would get on every day and just pat him - letting him know it was me in the saddle and that we would be ok. We walked and trotted for a few days and I decided to give it a go again at one more show, Meadowlake - a quieter environment. The dressage rings were all contained and he didn't have to jump a single jump. He was a star! I treated him with some gastrogard-type supplement for two days before and it made a huge difference. He is one that should probably live on an ulcer supplement. He went in and put in 6 GREAT tests - of course, we brought his girlfriend Jazzy up with him so he had a friend to keep him company but I could not have been more proud! And had it not been for my error in the test, he would've scored his best score to date. We came home with a first and two seconds!” (See the video of Shooter's best dressage test here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpJzxuERVKk)

Shooter was supposed to come back to the MMSC the first of March. But knowing him as I did, I felt that he had to stay at Melissa’s a little longer to make him truly adoptable. He was tried by one potential adopter, but the fit was not a good one. He wasn’t ready to go. But one potential adopter who had heard his story through an email exchange with us decided to pitch in, offering to pay half of his board until he found a home. But even paying half is too expensive for the MMSC.

I pleaded with Melissa over and over to adopt Shooter. 

“If I had the money I would not even question him staying Fly's brother for the rest of his life,” she told me repeatedly. “However, Fly is my first commitment and keeping her happy and healthy is my goal. My husband and I don't have the funding to be able to keep two horses. If I won the lotto or someone told me they would pay his bills for the rest of his life, it would be a no brainer. I love this little horse! I told myself I wouldn't fall in love, it was just a foster. But we all knew that wasn't going to happen.

“I worry so. I don’t know what is going to happen to him. I know you will find him a great home, but when? And what if he comes back again? What if I help chose a home that isn't the right home? Will he think I failed him? Will he think I abandoned him? It's hard for me to think about him leaving but I know for him a forever home that could spoil him is exactly what he needs and I can't give that to him right now.”

I got to thinking. I can’t justify keeping Shooter with Melissa any longer and paying for his board and training. But that is clearly where where this adorable horse belongs for now.

 But what if I were to broadcast his story?  Surely you out there reading about him would help him stay with Melissa until he finds his forever home, a home that Melissa KNOWS will be perfect for him? If you are willing and able to help, would you go to www.gofundme.com/meteorshot right now. No gift is too small.  Remember a cistern is filled one drop a time. Please, if you can, help Shooter. This is your chance to make a big difference in this little horse’s life.

Thank you and cheery bye,

Susanna

Older Racehorses: Bordeaux Bandit

What do you do with an older racehorse? A horse that is not unsound, but like any middle-aged athlete has accumulated over time pesky aches and weak spots that need attention? An animal which, like career service men and women, has spent its life on the move in a demanding job with ever changing vistas and company? Those horses are much harder to place than the young ones that may have raced a few times if ever at all; the ones that are too slow or too sweet to make the break, from the starting gate literally, or in the competitive field of racing, figuratively. As I tell visitors to the MMSC, not every horse is destined to be a racehorse. Some don’t hold up physically or mentally. Some don’t have the brains or the stomach for it. But you have those special horses that get the game, that cotton to it, and that commit to trying. Bordeaux Bandit is one of those.

Bordeaux Bandit was sold as a yearling at the Keeneland Sales for $350,ooo. He is well bred, by Vindication who is by Seattle Slew, out of Mimi’s Golden Girl, a Seeking the Gold mare, and must have been very good looking as a youngster. At 10, he’s handsome still. Well balanced, a lovely shoulder and hind end, and a beautiful head with big, expressive eyes.  He ran once as a two year and nine times as three year old. He showed a bit of promise here and there. He was a good, solid campaigner, always trying.

In October of his four year old year, he was claimed for the first time, racing five times for that stable before being claimed for the second time by an owner/trainer who kept him and campaigned for four more years. Still racing at nine in $5K claimers, the original owners decided to buy him back and retire him. Except that he was sound, and very service oriented. There was no reason he couldn’t have a second career; indeed, it would be good for him. He probably would have gone mad or become depressed if forever relegated to greener pastures. Think how a career sergeant would feel if sent, at age 45, to live in the confines of an old folks home.  

So Bordeaux Bandit came to the MMSC last June, just one month after his last race. His ankles were a little big, but x-rays showed nothing of concern-edema that could be healed with cold hosing and rest. Like all career athletes some muscles were tighter than others, some bigger, some smaller. He was stiff. He needed to be chiropractically realigned. Massage and magnetics would help him. Stretching both from the ground and from the saddle too. A joint surfactant, acupuncture, and herbs would be beneficial. None of those things concerned me. They rarely do with ex-racehorses. Provided there are no major injuries, the body can be fixed with time and diligent care.

It’s the brain and spirit that I worry about. Older racehorses are laden with with mental and spiritual baggage. I never know how long it will take to get to the bottom of that stuff. I am pretty confident that we can get  there. I have only encountered a few in my time that have a permanent lodestone so cemented in their psyches or souls it can’t be dislodged. The question of what to do with these rare types is the subject for a whole other blog which I probably will never write.  

Older racehorses like Bordeaux Bandit deserve a chance, yet they present a real problem for the MMSC. Capable of having a second career, but needing the time to transition there, these horses are expensive to take on. Without my help, they may not be able to go on to a new career right away because they are too stiff, too sore, too “race tracky” to suit an amateur owner. Yet no professional is going to touch a horse like that—because it can be difficult to ride at first and even once reschooled most likely won’t have the scope to win because of its age and history. Horses like that get flipped for low dollars. They also contribute to the bad rap of the “crazy Thoroughbred”. 

How can I justify spending donated dollars on a horse that needs time to unwind physically and mentally that needs new skill sets to be serviceable yet that racks up a bill of five, six, seven thousand dollars over nine months or so in making this transition? Should I not take on these horses and recommend that they be permanently retired? What would that cost over fifteen or so years? And who would pay for that? 

Doesn’t it make sense, therefore, if the horse could have a purpose to invest in its transition to a new home and job?  I think so.  But I also look at the MMSC’s  bottom line and budget all the time. A horse like Bordeaux or Bawanna Jake or Nowhere to Hide, two horses that I wrote about in earlier blogs, can rack up bills of $6000 or more before they are ready to find a home where I know they can be of service, be safe, and be loved. Yet, how can I ask for that money back from an adopter when that is the cost of a show horse or a younger horse with potential? As we speak, I have $6,800 of expenses in Bordeaux—he is lucky because his donors love him and cover much of those costs. But what if he didn’t  have owners like that?  Until I establish and get a fully funded “slush fund/trust fund” for horse care, I can’t.   

Yet Bordeaux, as we call him at the MMSC, is priceless. When he came to the MMSC last June, he was all business and no pleasure. He didn’t like to be touched (he still doesn’t as he is very ticklish), refused treats, looked out at the world with levelheaded yet circumspect eyes. In the field, it took him months to learn how to play with other horses. He kept his distance from the herd, a grumpy old man who scorned the antics of the young.

Under saddle, he was workmanlike but stiff and tense. When asked to canter, he wanted to gallop. When trail riding, he stayed on high alert, like a commando anticipating ambush. He did all that we asked: walked over bridges, trotted over cavalletti, jumped cross rails, but he showed no joy, just duty.

He was tried by several potential adopters last fall, but his horsenality was too dry and his way of going too intense. So when our closing date in December came, we sent him off to a friend of mine, Diana Shoop, who fosters horses on her Gemstone Farm for free for us. Diana is never without a carrot or a kind word for any horse. She’s hawk-eyed about her horses and diligent with their care. She had adopted an older racehorse, Desert Wheat from us, and I had seen how he has bloomed emotionally and physically in her care. I knew Bordeaux would be in good hands.  

I was right. When I went to visit him in February of this year, I couldn’t believe what I saw! Yes, he was wooly and plump, but that didn’t surprise me. It was the look in his eye! Happy. Calm. Trusting.  Bravo Diana and Father Time!  His balanced conformation was now matched, nay surpassed by his beautiful expression!

Bordeaux has always been ready to serve, but he has come back expressing a real joy in doing so. He is still sensitive—he needs a light hand and seat and a clamped leg still means GO! He is still ticklish and doesn’t like to be groomed vigorously. But now he likes treats, and having his forehead rubbed. He has become quite the trickster in the field, grabbing the feed tub and challenging the youngsters to play tug of war with it. He leaps, he races, he spars with them too. He is bursting with life and joie de vivre. 

Yes, it cost money to bring this older racehorse around. Yes, he is lucky to have former owners that support him. Yes, the MMSC has been good for him.  But surely, this beautiful horse deserves this? He served his humans as he could at the track. Having started 41 times, won 3 firsts, 6 seconds, and 5 thirds for a career total of $100,700, he has a past to be proud of. Now Bordeaux Bandit awaits his glorious future, as do many other older race horses just like him.

Cheery bye,

Susanna

A Bigger Picture

This week was all about the BIGGER PICTURE. We need weeks like that because life is daily. We get up. Clean up. Put our pants on one leg at a time, and hit the “To do” list. We lose sight of the forest for the trees.  

To help us out, God has given us or we have created holidays—yearly check points— temporal and spiritual oases (yes, that is the plural of oasis) where, if we are smart, we pull up short, take stock, stock up, and regroup before heading back out to take the heat in a world full of mirages. 

This week, if you are Jewish, your check point was Passover; Christian, Holy Week; Buddhist, I hear it’s a festival called Songkran, and I am not sure about Muslims, Confusians, or Daoists, that’s out of my league. Deists and pagans, I suppose, celebrated spring. Really, all of us should be doing that because it’s been a nationwide long winter. This week, at last, spring has sprung in Kentucky. The grass done greened up considerable I once heard a Kentucky horse farmer say. What he meant was that one day, you walk out of your door and the fields which for months have been the color of overcooked peas are suddenly so emerald green your eyes smart. It’s like Dorothy emerging from her drab monochrome Kansas world into the technicolor land of Oz. Dazzling. It happens every year. It's part of the bigger picture phenomenon.

So this week, the grass done greened up considerable. Buds are appearing on trees. Daffodils are blooming and the temperatures soared into the sixties. Life is returning to earth. At the MMSC, after our second week of “normalcy” we are hitting our stride.

Tuesday began, as usual with staff meeting. We reviewed the events of the past week:

 1. The Family Fun Day was so successful we decided to hold a summer series of them. 2. The newly seeded grass began to sprout in the front paddocks. 3. Four new adoption applications came in. What kind of horses were people looking for?  

We discussed the plans for the ensuing days: 1. Horse training goals and objectives; vet/farrier/chiro appointments; scheduled adopters arrivals; possible horses for our program for me to go look at; short term plans, CRUST fundraiser on Thursday, Sunrise Trackside demo on Saturday; long term plans (Rolex three weeks ahead), fundraising, problem solving, etc. There is never a dearth of subjects. Each one of us made “to do” lists, of course.

In the barn, Lilly was busy with the spa treatments for the new horses: dentist, farrier, chiropractors, acupuncturists, Thera-plating, Revitaveting, as well as treating the day to day dings that horses come up with that needed to be cold hosed, poulticed, packed, soaked, or scrubbed. She and I had reviewed all the training plans for the week. It was Lilly’s job to enact them. We added a new rider to our team, Sam, who used to own Rondo, one of our horses available for adoption. Although it was heart wrenching to her to give him away, she doesn’t have time in her life for a horse and so she generously ascertained that it would be better for him to have a person and a job. To help assuage her worries and sadness, I told her she could help Rondo pick his person.

Horses got ridden on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday and Friday it monsooned. The barn aisle flooded as it is wont to do in heavy rains. Water seeped under the foundation of the office and ponded in the bathroom. The arena and and the round pen were almost unusable, but use them we did, because we are behind schedule with our training and our adoptions. We moved slowly (mostly walked and some trot) and got drenched. Two new horses arrived on campus: Appealing Alex (“Alex”) and Simple Touch (“Esther”). Double Minded (“Dublin”) who has been in foster care in Florida, finally made it back home.

Catherine and Lori were drowning in applications, baby books, event planning, social media, and the flood of paperwork both incoming and outgoing in preparation for fundraisers big and large, horse shows for our horses, Rolex, our Nuno Santos clinic, and Sips ’N Saddles, this year on June 19. And I tried to keep our ship afloat and ever moving ahead, problem solving and initiating, steering and rectifying,  as well as slogging through my own deluge of stuff—like how to raise a half a million dollars this year. It’s because of all this that one easily loses sight of the bigger picture.

But then our beloved family Jack Russell, Brooks, 15, began to dim like a dwindling candle. He slept between my husband and me on his last night and on his last day he never left our arms. We buried him in monogrammed family linens. We cried a lot, but we also savored the warm memories of many years. It was a personal bigger picture moment. As it was for so many people around the globe. Jews remembered their Exodus from Egypt and how the angel of death passed over their homes sparing the lives of  their sons. Christians relived Jesus’s triumphant entry to Jerusalem, his final supper, his death, burial and resurrection, and sought perspective through this story in the dailiness of their own lives.

I am profoundly grateful for all bigger picture reminders. They are messages to each of us to choose the positive, not the negative, to see the good, not the bad. To recognize that we tread the Earth for but an instant. That we need to walk our talk. Adopt an attitude of gratitude. To live our happy life not at some point in the future, but TODAY! Sure, the world is a mess. We are wrecking our climate. We are squandering our resources. There is destruction and atrocity everywhere. For a little local and less apocalyptic perspective we were swamped figuratively with work and problems all week. Come Thursday when the heavens opened and dumped six inches of rain on us, we were inundated literally. The Horse Park entrance was flooded, roads everywhere in Lexington were closed. Taking care of horses was sheer wet, cold misery. It would have been easy to dive into a cesspool of complaints. 

But taking stock of the bigger picture, it had really been a blessed week. I had gotten leads on some promising new horses. We had a large monetary donation that dropped down upon us like manna from heaven. Loukas, a horse with a wonderful story which I will relate in a forthcoming blog, found his person. Saturday was Sunrise Trackside at the Keeneland Race Course, an event that is always a privilege and fun to do. It involves taking a horse to meet the early morning crowds to tell them about second careers for Thoroughbreds. All the interns help. They hand out brochures and greet visitors, answering questions about the MMSC. Jazz Fest (the Duchess of Cornwall’s favorite!) was a superstar with children (right) and grownups alike. “We are from Indianapolis and drove down here to escape March Madness,” Susan and her husband, Mark, told us. “We like horses, so we thought we would come here this morning.  We have never thought about what happens to Thoroughbreds after racing and we have loved learning about what you do! Thank you for coming!” Comments like that and smiles of delight from children show our interns how much what they and the MMSC does, matter.

Susan and Mark of Indianapolis with Jazz Fest

When all is said and done and the horses are loaded up and heading back (thank you Brookledge!), to the MMSC, I always arrange a tour of the Keeneland complex to reward the MMSC interns and volunteers. This year Walt Robertson, Vice President of Sales at Keeneland, led us for an hour and a half from the administrative offices to the sales pavilion, from Millionaire row, to the press box, explaining all, answering questions. Last but not least, he took us up a steep set of stairs onto the roof to the announcer’s tower where we met Kurt Becker who has called races at Keeneland for nineteen years. There was so much we wanted to know from Kurt: How does he keep all the horses straight? Does he memorize  their names? Or the colors and shapes on their silks? How does he tell them apart when they are muddy? Did he get nervous? Had he ever “miscalled” a race?  

Kurt graciously endured the barrage and invited us to stay in the tower while he called a race. But suddenly the first strains of the national anthem lilted through the track loudspeaker. We fell silent and stood tall. Some of the interns clasped their hands. Many gazed out the window taking in the bird’s eye view of the track with its emerald green infield, its name spelled out in trimmed boxwoods and beyond, the famous horse farms demarcated with black and white fences, the barns with cupolas and the white-pillared mansions.

The view of Keeneland from the Announcer's Booth

I looked around the room, studying each person’s face. Suddenly I espied a different panoramic vista: One where the uniqueness and singular beauty of each individual lept out at me. Where the sight of the Kentucky and  American flags fluttering from flag poles on the track below and the sound of our national anthem sung in four part harmony accompanied by fiddles saturated my senses with state and national pride. One where my mind hovered momentarily to ponder the mystery and marvel of the jets in the sky ascending and descending at the nearby Bluegrass airport bringing and taking people who knows where, to do who knows what. Each one important. Each one with a purpose. Each one part of a bigger grace-filled picture. 

And then the anthem was over and that view receded. Visions like that don’t last long.  That’s a good thing because their majesty rams you into park. You wouldn’t get much done  or travel too far if you always focused on the forest and not the trees. Pictures like that, are like the photos on our walls, our tables or chest of drawers-when they catch our eye, we become blissfully aware-for an instant- of the magnitude and the preciousness of life.

 Cheery bye,

Susanna

Why so many highlit words this week? Because I am taking a broad spectrum approach to the Word of the Day in celebration of the “Bigger Picture" week!

The Blog Word of the Day:

 Help us reach our goal of 112,000 total blog visitors this year! Join our Word of the Day contest and you could be entered in a grand prize drawing to win a $500 horse credit at the MMSC or a Breyer model of Secretariat signed by Secretariat’s jockey Ron Turcotte! Simply read the blog every Sunday and find the highlighted Word of the Day. Then write a sentence using the word and submit it to mmsc04@gmail.com for a chance to be entered to win! Please read the full contest details below before submitting an entry.

• Blogs will be posted on Sundays. A chosen word will be highlighted within each blog post.
• Sentences using the highlighted word must be emailed to mmsc04@gmail.com with the subject line “Word of the Day Contest”.
• Entries may be submitted each week following a blog post from the posted time through Thursday at 5:00 pm.
• Winners will be posted on the MMSC Facebook page each Friday following a blog post.
• Entries must include the highlighted word of the day. The word of the day may be used in other parts of speech other than the one used in the blog, i.e. the highlighted word in the blog may be "malleability" but entrants may use the more common form "malleable" in their sentences.
• Entries must also include the entrant’s full name (first and last) and email address.
• Entrants may submit more than one sentence for consideration.
• Sentences will be judged based on correct use of the word of the day, grammar and sentence structure, and creativity. 
• Sentences will be judged by the MMSC staff, including MMSC Director Susanna Thomas, MMSC Barn and Media Manager Catherine Flowers, and MMSC Office Manager Lori Tobin.
• Winners of each word of the day contest throughout the year will be entered in a grand prize drawing to win their choice of either a $500 horse credit toward an MMSC horse available for adoption or a Breyer model of Secretariat signed by Ron Turcotte. To use the $500 horse credit, the winner must become an approved adopter with the MMSC and follow all adoption policies and procedures.
• The grand prize drawing will be held at the end of the year after Christmas and prior to New Year’s Eve.
• Disclaimer: This contest does not have a connection with Blogspot or Facebook in any way and is not sponsored, supported, or organized by Blogspot or Facebook. The recipient of the information provided by you is not Blogspot or Facebook but the Maker's Mark Secretariat Center.