Pay Attention makes a mint, lands softly
Author’s note: This story was originally published in July 2010. Amanda Smith started to pay attention to the plight of ill-fated racehorses shortly after Barbaro broke down at the 2006 Preakness Stakes. That’s when Pennsylvania pharmacist and pleasure rider started to ponder the ineffably sad ending that can come when their racing days are over. Her curiosity led her to websites by exercise rider and anti-slaughter advocate Alex Brown, and soon she started following careers of horses who were once big earners before they dropped in class to run for relative peanuts in claiming races. She started to monitor Alex Brown’s Top Bunk […]
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Clubhouse Q&A: Balancing babies and horses
Kimberly “KC” Compton DiCostanzo, a New York-based eventer and doting owner of ex-racehorse Zeus, recently welcomed her first child, Lyra, into her growing family, that now includes, husband Matt, several horses, and a gaggle of lesson riders. In this week’s Clubhouse Q&A, DiCostanzo answers questions about how she juggles the demands of motherhood with the daily feeding and cleaning chores necessary to keep her barnyard family happy. Q: What has been the most surprising part about adapting to motherhood while running a horse farm? I’m surprised how much you can do with a baby attached to you! In all seriousness, […]
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Thoroughbred ‘destiny’ brings great joy to rider
It was sleeting heavily the night Carin Brown and her mother piled into the car and set out on a somewhat treacherous 45-minute drive to see a horse they knew nothing about. With little more than a photograph of ex-racehorse Hermosa Valor to go on, Brown tucked it into the pocket of her thick winter coat, and the pair set out like a couple of determined postal workers. “By this point, we had already looked at something like 60 or 70 horses, and there was no way we weren’t going!” Brown says. “It took us about 90 minutes to get there […]
