It’s a picture-perfect life for two OTTBs
Slow racehorse? Don’t get Robin Murray started. Whenever she begins to describe the very special 17-hand black beauty who ran a few times at Calder, she has to stifle a giggle. “In his first race, you see the pack go by the finish line, and then you see one horse cross, 10 paces behind them,” Murray says. “And 10 paces behind that horse, here comes Pleasant Rascal!” says the Florida-based equestrian. “No, he didn’t really enjoy racing.” Nor, for that matter, did his predecessor in the North Miami barn where Murray works and retrains ex-racehorses. Pleasant Rascal, and before him, […]
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Mosaic Racing Stable preps horses for next careers— while they race train!
Jaws dropped when he entered the track. It wasn’t his size, although he measures 17 hands. Or his beauty, undeniably radiating from his well-muscled body and expressive, delicate face. What caused a stir as Circuitous entered the Aiken, S.C. training track was the perfect balance and poise exhibited by the working racehorse, who, on the side, was being taught by a three day eventer to carry himself correctly. As he powered by in a perfect three-beat rhythm, a dressage instructor, who happened to be there that day, exclaimed, “There goes an amazing canter!” His composure reflects a big idea coming […]
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Gallop girl rounds corner, turns phrase
From the first head-cracking tumble from a spirited racehorse, Natalie Reinert’s novel The Head and Not the Heart romps through the life of slightly obsessed racetrackers who rise at 4 a.m. to face the uncertainty, and occasional calamity, of a new day in the Thoroughbred world. With a journalistic writing style that puts you there— in the shed row, at the track on a frigid day, and in the early morning hours when no sane person should be awake— Reinert tells the tale of fictional characters Alex and Alexander, and their exceptionally hard work managing a racehorse farm. Alex is […]
