Pat Dale returns Thoroughbreds to glory
When Pat Dale was a young girl, she and her friends all longed to own Thoroughbreds. Ambling around on backyard-bred Quarter Horses, the sleek ex-racehorses seemed like panthers as they walked onto the show grounds. So lithe and intelligent, they epitomized the ideal of competitive equine athletes. “If you had a Thoroughbred in those days, you were lucky. You had to have an uncle who raced horses to get one, or the right connections,” says Dale, 57. “This was back when the top riders, who were like gods to us, were all riding Thoroughbreds.” Over the decades, as European Warmbloods […]
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Bragsforwardmotion shines through winter ills
It was a cold March evening, and the snow was swirling all around. Gently moving through deep drifts and icy footing, the horse carried Farrar where she wanted to go, answering her requests with immediate obedience. He didn’t spook, and seemed only to want to please her. “I fell in love with his mind right there,” Farrar says. She saw beyond the fact that, at the time, Bragsforwardmotion wasn’t much to look at. Suffering from a combination of rain rot and a fungal infection of his skin, the skinny Thoroughbred looked like he’d been through a battle when she arrived […]
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Jinx is the charm at Devon
Meghan Orr’s confidence had been badly shaken in an ego-bruising ride the day before. Three rails came down in the Devon Horse Show’s adult amateur jumper competition, and as she and Thoroughbred Four’s a Charm re-entered the show ring for their final try, Orr’s frustration was building. But in a good way. “I think I channeled that frustration into riding well,” she says in a Q&A interview with Off-TrackThoroughbreds.com. “I concentrated on what I needed to do instead of getting down on myself and forgetting how to ride!” So focused was Orr, she didn’t know how well she was doing […]
