Regiment: Faith

We covered some rugged terrain in the last blog, skirting the border between fantasy and fact, exploring the bizarre terrain of quantum reality, bounding over the towering virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love. It was a wild ride. But there’s a method to my madness. I wanted to explain, (and probably justify) the curious mixture of vision, drive, and credulity it takes to run a non profit organization for reschooling Thoroughbreds. 

I am speaking from my own narrow perspective. No doubt all non profit leaders rely on those attributes. I just know that to do my job, I have to nurture dreams and work diligently and daily on realizing them. Actualizing a vision in an unimaginative, flaccid-willed, naysaying world takes faith. And faith, as anyone who has tried to keep a promise, practice a discipline, or stay on a diet knows, is fragile and fleeting. It’s the at times seemingly stupid unflinching adherence to the expectation of the imagined and the unproven. Faith is not for wimps.

Every time I accept a horse into the MMSC program, I have to draw from my faith stash. I see many horses that are racing fit—as tucked up aand leggy as super models—some gleaming with health, others showing signs of the wear and tear of their athletic campaigns, a tad mangy, with stiffened joints and dull coats. I seek out the inherent physics of their infrastructure. It’s just a matter of angles, clearly visible in the skeletal layout, and calculating the inherent potential for thrust, pull, and leverage.

I look long and hard at the expression in the horse’s eyes. Intelligence, magnanimity, courage, spunk, confidence, naiveté, those qualities or the lack thereof are evident. I watch how the horse moves, even or uneven, springy or scopey; how it acts in relation to its handler, to its surroundings, to its onlookers. I weigh my thoughts and impressions on any given horse, and then, last but not least, check in with my gut. After all, as I said in an earlier blog, logic should be on tap, not or top.

Every decision—whether I accept the horse into our program or not— takes a leap of faith. Racehorses change hands a lot. Paper trails can be hard to come by. There are lots of unknowns: injuries, habits, vices which might surface at the MMSC. Those slow down the reschooling process.  Sometimes they arrest the process outright. In either case I hear the silent daily “cha-ching” as expenses add up. As they do, my decision seems less and less “cents-able.”

Every year, there’s always one horse that taxes my faith to breaking point:

This year it’s Reggie.

Regiment by Indian Charlie out of Beaucette by Mr. Prospector was regally bred by Gainesway Farm and sold at the August 2011 Saratoga yearling sale for $450,000. He ran in two races, came in third once with a career earnings total of  $6,450. Last September, he strained the suspensory in his left front leg.  When I saw him in November, he had been hand walking for two months. The swelling was minimal and there was no heat but his owners had decided nonetheless to rehome him.

Reggie was a plain bay with a knot just below his eyes where he had banged his head on the stall door sill. His frame, although tall, was narrow and his eyes harbored a look of arrogance. On the  positive side his shoulder was nice, his hind end even better, and he had a beautiful ground covering walk. My gut told me he would be an athlete, an eventer in fact, and a good one at that.

He arrived at the end of February after healing up from castration. His first week was spent settling in, getting “spa treatment,” and being beautified from head to toe.

A week later, he began Natural Horsemanship games and bomb-proofing exercises and handled all with poise. The next week we started riding him.

I was impressed. He was a lovely mover, with lofty gaits and regular cadence. He had a nice jump, too. He felt great under saddle, naturally balanced and powerful. He still held a somewhat disdainful look in his eye, but he was always polite.

I was excited and called someone I knew in Virginia who was looking for such a horse. When she came in early April to try him, she fell in love, and wanted to adopt him. But I didn’t like what I saw: Reggie wasn’t himself.  His jaw was stiff, his poll locked. His lovely, lengthy trot was choppy.  

I ran my hands over him and could feel that he was out in his neck. He had a few ribs out too. I told the prospective adopter that he needed a chiropractic adjustment prior to any pre-purchase exam. 

That was the first test of faith. What ensued over the next 12 weeks defies reason. Whenever we scheduled a pre-purchase exam or a date with a prospective adopter, Reggie managed the morning of  to come up lame: A hoof bruise, a swelling of the old suspensory, getting cast and twisting himself out of alignment, discouraging any potential adopter from taking him home.

We x-rayed, we ultra sounded. We hosed. We poulticed. Nothing special showed up. We kept him shod, or at least tried to-he never kept shoes on for longer than 48 hours, whether nailed or glued,  steel or aluminum. He got hives, and then skin disease. He grew grumpy and impolite, pinning his ears whenever someone entered his stall, and flashing his teeth when groomed. Although not off anywhere, he was surly when worked. He bullied his four legged pasture mates when out, and glowered with contempt at his two legged handlers when in.

Every day, I grew increasingly dismayed by my inability to figure him out. My faith was waning. Should I call his original owners?  Send him back? I couldn’t!  He was too nice. I had to hold on and figure out what was going on. Every test of faith was an opportunity to grow.

Shortly thereafter our acupuncturist discovered a nascent case of herpes, which although pesky, was treatable.With oral lysine, herbs, and soothing baths, Reggie, started to come around. The intermittent flaring up of the left front suspensory abated too, which the acupuncturist said was a common and curious symptom of herpes due to the placement of meridians. But he still refused to keep shoes on and came up constantly with bruises and gravels.

“Why do you keep pulling off your shoes, Reggie!?!!,” I sputtered out loud to him in exasperation one day. The next instant, a picture of how his shoes needed to be placed on his feet flashed into my brain. I picked up his right front foot. What I saw there was very different from the picture in my mind.  When I shared the information with my farrier, he scoffed, “Ok.  I’ll do what you say but it won’t work.”

 Reggie hasn’t lost a shoe since.

Intrigued by  this experience, I started asking Reggie if I might come in his stall when I opened the door. When I did he welcomed me politely.

I told everyone in the barn to verbally ask his permission for things—to pick up his feet, to be groomed, to stand still. Without exception, and without being touched, he responded with no recalcitrance. The more we experimented, the more Reggie surprised us all with his seeming ability to understand.  So we took this experiment into the riding arena, and there, too, we got responses. The old Reggie was back!  Sound and training better than ever. His expression grew less contemptuous. I even got a friendly nuzzle every so often.

Emboldened by this, recently I decided to pop the question.

Slipping into his stall, (after being granted permission of course), I asked quietly. “Reggie,Why are you always lame on pre purchase exams or when a prospective adopter comes to try you?”

The image of a male rider flooded my brain.

I suddenly realized that everyone who had tried Reggie thus far had been female.

“A guy, Reggie?  You want to go home with a GUY?”

He lifted his head from his hay and stared unflinchingly at me.

“Ok! Ok!  I’ll find you a guy.”

He put his head down and went back to eating hay.

I stood with my back against the stall wall, looking at him and let out a sigh.

“OMG!!!…. Am I nuts?”

“Absolutely not!,” my gut resounded

“Most likely,” sniggered my brain.

Wow! If I am to believe what just happened, I am supposed to find Reggie a guy? How am I going to do that?

No idea. 

 Let go and let God, I guess.

 Isn’t that what faith is about?

OYE! 

As I said, faith is not for wimps!!!!

Cheery bye,

Susanna

Wild Ride

Horse people,  grab your safety (a.k.a. your S.O.S/OH SH!&*T!) straps.  

The rest of you, fasten your seat belts. 

We are going on a wild ride. First we will lope through the 17th century; then gallop through the weird world of quantum mechanics; leap over the three theological virtues of FAITH, HOPE, and LOVE, and pull up at that most idyllic of places, the MMSC barn.

Ready? 

 We’re off!

It’s 1605.  Queen Elizabeth has recently passed away. Her first cousin twice removed, King James I is on the throne (working on the King James Bible, by the way). Shakespeare has just written Othello. A bunch of venture capitalists are collecting funds to set out for the New World where they will found a colony and name it Jamestown. France is ruled by Henri IV;  Spain by Philip III. His subject, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra publishes a raucous, ribald, spoof of chivalric literature: Don Quixote de la Mancha that will become an instant success and an international classic down through the ages.

We all know the story: Crazy old man sets out on a nag accompanied by a fat peasant astride a donkey to live the life of a medieval knight, righting wrongs, defending church, country, and virginal ladies. Trouble is he is about 200 hundred years too late.The Age of Chivalry is dead. Nobody crusades any more. Instead, they slog along trying to defend their status, their savings, and their stuff.

 What most of us don’t know either because we’ve never read the book, or we read it so long ago when we were young and naive, is that this is a scathing satire of sheer genius on just about everything in Spain in the early 17th century: Society, politics, religion, culture. Cervantes was the John Stewart of his day. Observant, clever, naughty, and really, really funny.

But it has a deeper level too: To Dream the Impossible Dream level. It’s the tale of clashing realities. To Don Quixote, windmills are giants menacing the countryside. Sheep herds churning up dust clouds are Moorish armies on the march to be conquered. He is not delusional. He is on a noble quest of service and purpose. Yet he slams time and again into the pedestrian backdrop of daily living.

Those who think out of the box are familiar with these collisions. Fantasy against reality.

That’s where quantum mechanics comes in.

It is 1900 and Max Planck develops a “theory of quanta,” rocking the foundation of the three hundred year old Newtonian world of physics. In 1905, Albert Einstein publishes his special theory of relativity. Six years later, the nucleus of an atom is found, followed in 1915 by Einstein’s proposal of a general theory of

relativity. In 1924, matter waves are discovered. Schrodinger comes up with that pesky “thought experiment” leaving us all wondering if the cat in the box is dead or alive or both.

Over the next six decades, the world of quantum mechanics explodes with neutrons, positrons, masons, quasars, quarks, all bursting out of the minds of the 20th century physicists. And the world is getting weirder and weirder. Matter is both a particle AND a wave. Time speeds up or slows down, depending. Age may not be chronological but simultaneous. And reality may not exist on its own. 

So the tree falling in the forest only makes a sound if someone hears it? Maybe so. It also could be that the tree only falls if someone perceives it having done so!

“No phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon,” said Princeton professor John Wheeler, who worked on the Manhattan Project and later coined the term “black hole,” those matter hogs in space. Hailed as  a “physics super hero” of the latter 20th century, Wheeler totally blew apart the Newtonian idea that the world existed in a defined, objective way. Instead, he argued, that the universe was subjective and interactive, and advanced the theory of genesis by observership. 

Another way of saying this in a more intelligible, albeit “woo-woo” way, is: Read The Secret, the 2006 bestseller that talks about the Law of Attraction. The premise of this book is that we can contribute to the creation of a physical reality by what we direct our minds to. “Thoughts become things, choose the good ones.”

Still with me?  I hope so. I know all this takes a real leap of faith, which is why we are going to quickly hurdle the three theological virtues faith, hope and love heralded by Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 of the Book of Acts. 

You need all of those virtues to run a not for profit for used luxury items, i.e. Thoroughbreds. Faith because you must stay steadfast in your belief that you can carry on no matter what. Hope, because it buoys you with a much needed cheerful expectation of all good things to come. And love, because, well, you just want to do your part, unconditionally and selflessly for a cause bigger than yourself--helping these amazingly beautiful, vulnerable animals who can’t do it without you.

Which brings me to the MMSC. Thank you for your patience while I took you on the unorthodox and seemingly “unhorsey” ride.  But it my mind, all of these subjects have everything to the MMSC, and I wanted you to know that.

Sure we may be like Don Quixote trying in our small way, one horse at a time, to change a horse’s world, an adopter’s world, and maybe sometime, the racing world.

Or we might be like quantum physicists determined to influence the creation of our reality with good thoughts and positive imagined outcomes.

And we need to approach the reschooling of every horse with faith, hope and love every day. But, sometimes that’s not so easy. I have, for example, a horse in the barn right now that’s really testing my faith. I’ll tell you about it…in the next blog. 

Cheery bye,

Susanna

To dream ... the impossible dream ...

To fight ... the unbeatable foe ...

To bear ... with unbearable sorrow ...

To run ... where the brave dare not go ...

To right ... the unrightable wrong ...

To love ... pure and chaste from afar ...

To try ... when your arms are too weary ...

To reach ... the unreachable star ... 

This is my quest, to follow that star ... 

No matter how hopeless, no matter how far ... 

To fight for the right, without question or pause ... 

To be willing to march into Hell, for a Heavenly cause ... 

And I know if I'll only be true, to this glorious quest, 

That my heart will lie will lie peaceful and calm, 

when I'm laid to my rest ... 

And the world will be better for this: 

That one man, scorned and covered with scars, 

Still strove, with his last ounce of courage, 

To reach ... the unreachable star ...

Restored Picture

I really wanted to watch the Belmont Stakes last Saturday. I really love my job, but lately my faith in being able to realize the big picture I have for the MMSC as well as for the betterment of the racing industry down the stretch has been flagging. Any one who has tried to effect change any where at any time, knows that it takes vision and grit. But, heaven forbid should your picture get obfuscated! Then your gusto will lag. And gusto is essential.


This race could be the pick-me-up I needed. First of all, the “people’s horse,” California Chrome (left) was chasing the third jewel in the Triple Crown. His becoming the first horse in 36 years to win it would be really great for racing. But my heart belonged to the little grand horse, Samraat (right), owned by a MMSC board member. I had reschooled his full sister and several of his half siblings. He was family. I understood what the mother of Tracy and Lanny Barnes must feel when her twin daughters (below) compete in the same biathlon events. How does one pick a favorite child?

I burst through the door at home that evening, dashed to where our television sits, and was alarmed to find an agitated husband, remote in hand, randomly slamming its buttons whilst glaring at the Direct TV logo that bobbed saucily across a blank screen.

“What’s up?” I asked, suspecting the answer.

“The D#%%**&&!!!  TV WON’T WORK!,” he spurted.

“Let’s see, honey.” 

Husbands tend not to like to read, follow, or ask for directions. It has to do with the Primeval-Man-Can-Do! thing. Fortunately I am immune to that, and without hesitation picked up the phone.

“Hello. Thank for calling Direct TV. This is Nenita. How may I help you today?”

 I explained the urgency to restore service. The Triple Crown. One horse had a chance to win it. Another was a favorite of mine.  

 “Yes ma’am. I understand.”  She had a refreshing accent,  like pineapples or starfruit. 

Where are you located, Nenita?”

“In the Philippines, ma’am.”   

“You speak beautiful English!”

“English and Filipino are the two official languages spoken here. But there are over 100 other languages and dialects spoken in my country.”

“My goodness! How many of those do you speak?”

“Four, ma’am, and I understand many others. Now let’s reset your system, shall we?”

Nenita began walking me through the unplugging of chords, the depressing of buttons temporarily, the scrolling through options. It took, seemingly, forever. I kept eyeing my watch. When I get nervous, I talk. So I kept asking her questions.

“Have you ever heard of the Triple Crown? Or the Kentucky Derby?”

“Perhaps the Kentucky Derby, ma’am.”

“Oh well, you should Google it.”

“I will, ma’am, but only after I get off work. We do not have much internet access here on the job.”

“When do you get off work, Nenita?”

“In a few minutes, ma’am.”

“What time is it there?”

“About quarter to six in the morning, ma’am. I work the graveyard shift.”

“When do you sleep?”

“For about four hours when I get home, ma’am. I am a single mom of a four year old boy. I want to be with him as much as I can.”

“Heavens! And how many languages does he speak?”

“Two, ma’am. Are the satellite settings resetting now? It should only take a few more minutes.”

While I waited, I learned that Filipino is a Spanish-Creole based language as the country was colonized by the Spaniards in the 1500s and named for their king, Philip II. Comprised of an archipelago of over 7,000 islands, the Philippines boasts some 99 million inhabitants, making it the seventh-most populated country in Asia and the 12th most populated country in the world. It’s a powerhouse for cellular service, tropical beaches and active volcanoes.

“What are your thoughts about climate change?," I asked, remembering the tsunami that struck her country last November claiming thousands of lives. I wondered if she thought it existed or not.

“It definitely exists,” she said. “Take for example the weather today,” and she proceeded to detail its idiosyncratic behavior. “It is certain that we are impacting the planet. It is also certain that to change this, we all must come together.” 

“Can we do that, Nenita? Can we change?”

"Of course we can.  If we all work together to achieve something bigger than ourselves."

“If we are around as a planet in 100 years, what will we be doing? "

“We will all be individually flying,” she replied with total assurance.

“Wouldn’t the skies be terribly crowded?”

She laughed, a tinkly sort of laugh, like a stream trickling over smooth stones.  

“Probably so. But scientists must already be working on that kind of thing. After all, all change is brought by an idea. In time the idea takes shape. People then come together with action around this idea. Momentum builds, and change takes place. It’s always like this…Is your picture restored yet?”

Smitten by her thoughts, I hadn’t noticed the face of  sports commentator Bob Costas looming from my screen.

“It is!!”  

“That is very good, Mrs. Thomas. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Her use of “Mrs. Thomas” suddenly struck me as odd. In fifteen minutes of conversation, I had connected with her as a fellow human being who is living a daily life, as am I, trying to thrive.

“No, thank you.”

 “She hesitated. “Thank you for your interest in my country. Isn’t it  amazing that we can speak to one another from around the globe, work together on repairing a piece of equipment in your house, and exchange so many thoughts about our world?”  The tinkly laugh followed.

“Yes, technology is an amazing in how it connects us all. Thank you so for your help. And for talking with me. I’ve really enjoyed it. Now go home, and get some sleep.  And, do me a favor, please?”

“What’s that?, ma’am?”

“Hug your little boy. He’s got a lovely mother.”

“I will, Mrs. Thomas. Thank you. And thank you again for calling Direct TV.”

Just in time. The horses were parading in front of the grand stand. I joined my husband on the couch. 

Change. Will it ever take place in the racing industry?  I envision a day when we will have a nationwide race day medications policy. There will be a racing commissioner over the entire industry. And there will be a universal, fully funded program for the aftercare of racehorses.

People tell me repeatedly that none of this is possible. That everything and everybody is too entrenched in their fiefdoms of self-interest.  Really? I say. Rome fell. The Berlin Wall was torn down. The Soviet Union disintegrated.

But, I admit, keeping clear vision day to day takes effort. My rosy picture gets smudged, dimmed, or frozen in place. That’s when I head to the barn. For me its like unplugging everything, holding down buttons, and resetting the system.  In a snuffle or two from a grateful horse, I will know, again, that all things can be changed if we can all come together and commit to an idea that is bigger than ourselves... 

The starting gate clanged open. Horses surged onto the track.

Things happen because of all of those who stand in the shadows making it so.  Let’s make change happen in the TB industry!

Thanks, Nenita, for restoring my picture.

Cheery bye,

Susanna

SPRING BLUR

I’ve done it again-let the spring months blur by without posting a word on the MMSC blog. I did the same thing last spring. I swore this January I would do better. So much for New Year’s resolutions.

Here are my explanations (not excuses!) for this lapse:

1. Life is daily.
I make a “to do” list every night. It’s always long. Here are some of the daily features: 
BARN: Feedings, groomings, messing up, cleaning up, training, treatments.
OFFICE: Input/output of emails, letters, phone calls, bills, reviewing applications, putting out daily conflagrations, planning.
APPOINTMENTS: Board, staff, or committee meetings; adopters looking at horses, or looking at horses myself off campus, attending industry conferences, or to trying to meet at least one potential sponsor or donor every week. 

I guess some people get from A to Z on their daily “to do lists.” I never do. But every day I try. Hope springs eternal.

2. Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans.

The“to do”list falters with the lobbing of curve balls: Impromptu visits of old friends or new ones popping in the door. The server goes down. The printer breaks. A horse goes awry: Maine Avenue comes in with a pulse in both feet. Reggie gets his neck stuck under the fence and twists his neck out of alignment. The proud flesh on Formaggio’s right heel is growing back. Agie’s rain rot has flared up. Jake is diagnosed with EPM. Max is being Max, and the thirty minute training session goes on for an hour. Bandi throws a shoe, AGAIN.

Those days it takes me all day to get from A to B. And sometimes, I get turned totally upside down. I am lucky then to make it from A to a!

3. It is wonderful to have written.

“Writing is easy,” said the late brilliant sports writer Red Smith (1905-1982).  “I just sit at the typewriter and open a vein and bleed.” Really? Red Smith’s columns flow with stylistic ease and grace. He struggled?! 

I love the English language. When I speak, I flirt with vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure to the best of my limited ability. But writing is different. The words don’t evaporate like spoken ones. They hang around. In fact they entrench themselves on the screen before me. When I reread them, they tend to lurch and lumber across the page recalling my long ago days learning to drive a stick shift. More often than not, I’ll write a paragraph and stall out. Especially if I am trying to craft a blog while I am at the MMSC. That’s like trying to drive a manual car on the steep hills of San Francisco in the midst of a blizzard.

So I resolve to do it at day’s end, after my hour’s drive home, taking care of my horses, making dinner, trying to be a bit present for my family, and of course, making the “to do” list for the next day. But the lure of bed where I can dream of having written is too seductive.

That leaves weekends.  But “what, pray tell is a week end?,” I ask, like Violet, the Dowager Countess Grantham from the hit BBC production Downtown Abbey. 

I am not so sure I know. That’s why I have a day clock  on my office wall at the MMSC. It’s only marginally effective, however. One reason is that we work on Saturdays, taking Sunday and Mondays off to accommodate the schedules of potential adopters. This off stride week would make even the most calendar conscious individuals stumble. Then there’s the whole guilt thing: Why should I be off when the majority of people around me are working? The truth is, leaving all complexes aside, it feels weird to be relaxing while the rest of the world toils. Finally, there’s the “I have too much to do!” internal whipping boy. Most people know about that pesky inner being. He’s alive and well in me.

So I am always working.

Or perhaps I am always playing?  

Isn’t playing doing something that you love to do? 

Don’t you find that the harder the challenge, the more fun you have? 

Isn’t it great to never be bored?  To always be inspired?

If that is the case, then I never work.  

We should all be so lucky!

                                               Cheery bye,

                                                                        Susanna

Racing in the Blood: Joe and Dandy

Most adopters come to the MMSC seeking a horse that can be an ambassador for the breed in a new equestrian discipline at any level from Pony Club to to the Olympics. Occasionally, however, we get a few like Joe Buscher. Joe wasn’t looking for a competition horse. He liked what he had heard about our program. It tickled him that we were in Lexington, the Thoroughbred Horse Capital of the World. And he was impressed that we had Secretariat in our name, one of the greatest racehorses in the twentieth century. Joe came to us because he had racing in his blood.

Busher, 1945 Horse of the Year

Born into a family who had deep roots in Thoroughbred industry, Joe’s grandfather, Joseph Henry Buscher,was a widely respected trainer in Louisiana who lived with his wife Josephine two short blocks from the Fair Grounds Race Track in New Orleans. When his grandfather dropped dead on the backstretch from a heart attack in the early 1940s, the track’s owner at the time, Colonel E.R. Bradley named a yearling filly, Busher, in his honor. Busher was Champion two year old filly of 1944; and Champion three year old filly, Champion Handicap Mare, and Horse of the Year in 1945. She was elected to the US Racing Hall of Fame in 1964 and is ranked fortieth in The Blood Horse’s Top 100 Race Horses of the 20th Century.


Joe’s maternal step grandfather Alva Troutt was a trainer, as were Alva’s two brothers, Noble and Clyde. Joe’s grandmother, Edith, was a cook at the track kitchen. Joe’s father worked for a time in the mail room at the Fair Grounds, and his uncles, Bob and Vern, worked as grooms and exercise boys for Marion Van Berg and Warren Wright. Joe’s childhood memories include hearing the mid-stretch call of the races from his grandparents’ porch; climbing the patrol tour with his Grandpa Troutt to watch the races; visiting his grandmother in the track kitchen; meeting jockeys and trainers;
and hanging out in the stables. He read the racing results in the paper every day. He watched every race he could on television. His mother, who worked at a book store, often brought him The Blood Horse and the Daily Racing Form to read.

Despite the deep family involvement in racing, however, none of his relatives was keen to see young Joe follow in their footsteps. “They all did everything they could do to keep me away from a career at the track,” says Joe.

The first in his family to finish high school and to attend college, Joe studied accounting at Southeastern Louisiana University and graduated in 1970. He worked as a CPA in New Orleans, was chief financial officer for three Louisiana hospitals, and then was general manager for New Orleans
City Park.

But racing was still in his blood. So throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he had racehorses that ran mostly in Louisiana at the Fair Grounds, Jefferson Downs, Evangeline Downs and Delta Downs. He won a few and lost a lot. Eventually, when he couldn’t take the heart break and the expenses any more, he got out of the business. He and his wife moved to Tennessee leaving Thoroughbreds and the racetrack behind.

They bought 45 acres and named it Buscher Ranch. They built a barn, and put up fencing. They got some pleasure horses, none of them Thoroughbreds. Until one day, when Joe heard about the need for loving forever homes for off track Thoroughbreds. This got his blood racing again. He came to the MMSC shortly thereafter, looking for a Thoroughbred to care for and love.

Dandy's first ride at the MMSC

One of the requirements we have at the MMSC is for the future adopter to come to the MMSC to try the horse/s of interest to see if the fit is right. It may seem like a silly practice. But the horse should have its say in the matter. Besides, it makes good fiscal sense, for if the horse doesn’t get along with the adopter, it will be returned to the MMSC, guaranteed. Another reason for this practice is that quite often, when potential adopters come, they end up going home with a completely different horse than the one that originally piqued their interest on line. It’s a karma thing.

Joe came to the MMSC besotted with Studio Time, a gray gelding we had had on campus for awhile. But I told him that before he stepped in the barn, he might want to start with baby books to get some background on the horses that we had available that might suit him.

“Will you look at this!!!” he exclaimed as he studied Dandy’s Noble’s book. “Storm Cat! Blushing Groom! Raise A Native! Roberto! Bold Ruler! Nijinsky II! Majestic Prince! This mare is ROYALLY bred!”

Dandy's Noble at 1 week old

Indeed, Dandy’s Noble was royally bred. She was a lovely mover, had a huge hind end, and was sensible and kind to boot, all qualities that would have made her a nice event horse. But Joe wasn’t looking for that. He wanted a horse that he and his daughter could practice their Natural Horsemanship with and to trail ride English or Western. They looked at several MMSC horses and rode a few, even Studio Time. But it was Dandy, with her smarts, good looks, and willingness to please that won them over. She seemed happy with them too.

Recently I checked in with Joe to see how Dandy and he were faring in this wretched weather we have all been battling. Dandy is doing better than Joe. She gets brought in at night to a clean stall and is turned out every morning, is fed twice a day, gets blanketed, pampered and tons of love. Joe, on the other hand, is weary of breaking ice, mucking stalls, having numb fingers, cold toes, and aching older joints.

He doesn’t have to do this. With eight other pleasure horses, he certainly didn’t have to take on another horse, and a Thoroughbred to boot!

So, why?

Joe and Dandy

“I love the heart, determination, athleticism, and competitiveness of the Thoroughbred. This mare ran at Aqueduct, Belmont Park, and Saratoga, not Delta Downs, Evangeline, and the Fair Grounds! She won her second race in New York and led every step of the way against other top horses. She has Majestic Prince, the 1969 Derby winner, and one of my most favorite horses, Secretariat, and Native Dancer in her blood lines! She’s a horse I could only dream of having. I believe God created the Thoroughbred to be one of his most noble and elegant beings. I feel honored to walk in my barn and see this wonderful Thoroughbred every day.”

Ah yes! Joe has racing in his blood!


Cheery bye,

Susanna

Melissa and Fly

On January 18, I  had the honor of being the guest of Melissa DeCarlo Recknor, former Adoptions and Volunteer Coordinator at the MMSC, and her wonderful husband, Russell at the Mid South Eventing Association year end awards dinner. Melissa had earned first place in beginner novice senior horse trial division and second place in beginner novice senior combined test with her MMSC graduate, Fly Lite.

Melissa and Russell

I wanted to be at the ceremony to show my appreciation for what Melissa and Fly had done together to raise awareness about the MMSC specifically and about the athleticism and value of off track Thoroughbreds in general. I also wanted to be there to show my admiration for her commitment to a tough and talented little mare. 

When Melissa (or “M” as I often called her) approached me in the late summer of 2009 about adopting Fly Lite, the small (15.1 on a good day) and willful nine year old chestnut by Fly Til Dawn out of Feodalite, I thought for a bit and meted out my response carefully. 

Fly always knows where her admirers are.

“If you do that, M, be prepared. Fly will make you cry. She’ll make you mad. She’ll tax your patience. You’ll want to give up on her, and if you do, that would be ok. But if you stick with her, she’ll teach things that take several lifetimes to learn as a horseman and as a human being. And if you want to show her, it will take about three years before she settles and you truly see results as a team.”

Melissa came to the MMSC in 2008 first as a volunteer. When she graduated in from the College of Music at the University of Kentucky the following May, I hired her to help in the barn and the office. I liked what I had seen:  She was a smart, quick, talented, compact bundle of spitfire with a ton of heart, like Fly Lite in two legged form.

Fly came to the MMSC before Melissa with a checkered past and an uncertain future. After a short bit in training at the track, but not showing promise, she was sold as a sport horse.  She proved to be a challenge there as well and landed, at age five, at the New Holland auction in February 2005, a sobering destiny ahead.

Enter Jo Deibel director of Angel Acres Horse Haven Rescue who is the regular and indefatigable angel of mercy for so many horses who end up in these dire straights. She noticed Fly’s cute face and clean legs, and using Fly’s tattoo, located her breeder, Barbara Rickline. Together she and Barb rescued Fly and placed her with friends in the racing industry to see if maybe Fly wanted to be a racehorse after all. Alas, she didn’t. (http://articles.philly.com/2005-10-08/sports/25442120_1_rescue-group-mare-bid). 

So Barb and Jo found an adopter, who after two years of dealing with Fly’s authoritarian attitude and antics, felt that maybe New Holland was the right route for the feisty little mare after all. Once again, however, Deibel stepped in, this time contacting the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation and pressing for a solution. Because the MMSC was managed by the TRF at the time, Fly arrived at the MMSC in November of 2007.

When I became director in 2008, I inherited a band of tough horses. I had a chronic rearer, a bolter, a malcontent that bit, struck out, and had broken one MMSC volunteer’s arm. There were  several unthrifty, nervous and mistrusting horses right off the track, and then there was Fly. 

Petite and well proportioned with a copper coat that gleamed like a newly minted penny, Fly had “mojo.” The best thing about her, however was her eye, a clear window to a “horse-ona” that bespoke of  a smart, self possessed individual that was several steps ahead of the crowd, and yes, “creative” in the sense that she was always assessing her impact on those around her. Think DIVA with a political sense, i.e. the love child of Hilary Clinton and Lady Gaga.

Riding her was an experience. She was agile as a cat, sensitive and reactive, and because of her conformation, quite naturally balanced. She also could jump… if and when she wanted. Impatient, high strung, and unwilling to suffer fools AT ALL, Fly had to have an ever changing scenario of requests and challenges. If not, she’d toss her head, pace, pull, or as a last resort, dump you. No endless drilling of leg yields or cavalletti for her. If you wanted to get along with her, it had to be interesting and it had to be on her terms.

Fly got adopted that summer to a lovely person and a good rider but unfortunately was returned to the MMSC about the time we were shutting down for the winter. I put her in a foster home and decided that I’d have to be even more selective about her adopter when she came back in the spring.

Melissa was the protege of an A show hunter barn in New York. She rode with impeccable form. The trouble was she didn’t understand the “function” part of the equation "form follows function," and wasn't well versed in how to use her seat, legs, and hands to train a horse, especially not a hot Thoroughbred mare. And she was scared to ride outside of a ring.

Melissa and Fly in 2009

I had tried to steer Melissa towards a young, affable gelding, something reliable and steady, a horse that might make a nice show hunter down the road. I thought his temperament would be a compliment to her ever  percolating, exacting one. But as I said earlier, although M is small in stature, she’s a titan in spirit, and when she decides to do something, one had best get out of her way!  Physically, she and Fly were a well matched, eye catching elegant pair. Temperamentally they were very similar, which could be the best thing that ever happened to Melissa (to Fly, too, for that matter), for, we only can truly ride our horses once we intimately know and have trained our difficult selves.  This is one of the great gifts that horses give to us. On the other hand, the two of them had all the ingredients necessary for the perfect storm. It was clearly a match made in heaven, but I suspected that there would be a whole lot of hell to go through to get there. It occurred to me that if Melissa was really going to adopt her equine alter ego, I had to do something to help them survive each other.

So I proposed that Fly become the MMSC mascot.

Fly, as mascot, loved greeting MMSC visitors.

Melissa had done a lot of showing and was interested in doing more. MMSC horses came and went to new homes so quickly that we rarely had a chance to take them to the show ring which was unfortunate because we wanted to show off their versatility. It would be wonderful to have an MMSC ambassador.  I would pay all entry fees, and cover the costs of clinics too, to help the the pair get ahead. It was a win/win/win situation. M got to keep her horse at the MMSC and ride it during working hours. The MMSC had a very pretty horse and rider team that would be regularly seen off campus promoting our program. I could keep an eye on both of them and make sure that the two didn’t implode.

Implode they did, however. There were outbursts of  frustrated tears and rage. There were refusals and low scores and humiliations and eliminations when they first started showing. My heart sank with every one of them. It was hard on Melissa. Fly didn’t look too happy either. I kept telling M that it took time to gain the experience and the trust, but if ever she felt she had hit a wall with Fly, it was ok move on to another horse. M turned a deaf ear to me and all other naysayers. She simply dug in and dedicated herself to Fly and to mastering her own fears and inadequacies as a horsewoman. 

Although at one point I know she found dressage arcane, she reconsidered her position, both mentally about the discipline as well as physically about her seat. She bought an excellent dressage saddle and learned to ride long and sit tall.

She took clinics and lessons. She  worked on her jumping and struggled to overcome her own fear of riding outside of a ring. She started trail riding. Then she started schooling cross country.  She had professional event rider, Lara Knight, ride Fly in her first two events. And, then, one day, Melissa evented herself. I watched their first cross country run with my heart in my throat and met M on the finish line, holding my breath.

"And? How was it?"  I asked nervously.

'THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN!," she exclaimed, breathlessly excited and smiling.  Fly, prancing and shaking her head with exuberance and pride, clearly loved the cross country experience as well.

When M left the MMSC to pursue a career in her chosen field of music, she found a wonderful trainer in Whitney Morris with whom she boards. Carefully and systematically Whitney continued to build both Melissa’s and Fly’s confidence and experience. With Whitney's vigilant daily guidance, the pair starting trusting each other, showing regularly and, slowly, the ribbons started to float in. You can look at her results below and see just how far they have come.  And there is no telling where these two will go now, either!

Seeing M’s big smile when she walked up to the dais at the MSEA was sight to savor. I knew from whence they had come. I had had a good idea about how arduous their journey was going to be. I witnessed many of their trials. If M had given up on Fly, I wouldn’t have blamed her. But she didn’t. I can say for sure that these awards represented an Olympic feat of determination, hard work, courage, and faith from both members of a  truly 
winning team. It’s the kind of story between a horse and her girl that inspires us all. 

Cheery bye, 

Susanna

Melissa and Fly Lite

2012:

- USEF Silver Stirrup National Reserve Champion, BN

- USEF Silver Stirrup Zone Champion, BN

- USEA BN Amateur, 8th place

- USEA Area 8 BN Amateur, Reserve Champion

- USEA Area 8 BN Rider, 8th place

- USEA Area 8 BN horse, 9th place

- MSEDA BN Combined Tests, 3rd Place

- MSEDA BN Horse Trials, 3rd place

- Jockey Club TIP Award at the Kentucky Dressage Assoc. spring warm up show (May)

2013:

- USEF Silver Stirrup Zone Champion, BN

- USEF Silver Stirrup National 3rd place, BN

- USEA BN Amateur, 6th place

- USEA Area 8, BN Amateur, Champion

- USEA Area 8 high point thoroughbred champion

- Jockey Club TIP Award at the KY Dressage Assoc. fall classic (October)

- 7th Area 8 BN Championships

- Midsouth Eventing and Dressage Association (MSEDA) 1st Placed Beginner Novice Senior Horse Trials

- MSEDA 2nd place- beginner novice senior combined test

- Jockey Club TIP Performance Award Program- 1st place Beginner Novice Combined Test Division

-Volunter Jockey Club TIP Performance Award Program- 1st place Beginner Novice Eventing Division

- Jockey Club TIP Performance Award Program- 2nd place Combined Test Overall 

- Jockey Club TIP Performance Award Program- 4th place eventing overall