CANTER Showcase brings hope, renewal
Receiving Barn A on the backside of Suffolk Downs seems an unlikely place for dreams to come true. The faded, hangar-like structure sits on the right, just past the track’s back entrance; it’s chewed in a few places and kicked in others. And yet, for nearly 100 racehorses who will parade in and out of the big barn next Sunday, the careworn façade can be the gateway to glory. For the last five years, horses no good for racing have been introduced to new owners and future careers as they step out to walk and trot past prospective buyers. “You […]
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Once destined for slaughter, Grace flourishes
What saved the delicate mare from the slaughterhouse 11 years ago was a combination of little things, really. First there was Kim Gatto’s ability to see past the Thoroughbred’s nicked, dull coat to envision her at her best; she saw a beauty beneath the shabby exterior of a horse who stood quietly with 30 others at the Pennsylvania auction house. “I could see that she was really pretty underneath,” Gatto recalls. “She was really petite and delicate.” And the next small thing— the money that would determine who purchased the horse—came down to the price of an inexpensive lunch. Ten […]
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Bareback over 5 foot wall, trust a TB
Gripping her mare’s warm sides without saddle and stirrups, Priscilla Godsoe sent her Thoroughbred galloping toward the five-foot jump. As the horse’s pace quickened in the moments before takeoff, Godsoe knew this: her ex-racer was the best horse to take her safely, bareback, over a high jump. “I don’t think I trusted any other horse to go down and jump that wall,” she says. Surrounded by elite equestrian competitors last month, Godsoe and her 13-year-old mare Judge Beautiful bounded over the bright red jump in the center of Plantation Field grand prix field, demonstrating, she says, the innate instinct the […]
