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Murray and Jody. Photo by Kim Vogee

Dear Murray, you were the best OTTB muse

California-based cartoonist and graphic designer Jody Livak Werner recently won first place in the Equestrian Social Media Awards for her advice column Dear Murray. The humor column, which swept onto the Facebook scene and attracted 20,000 fans in a few short months, offered a horse’s perspective on all those silly humans who ride them. Via a clever collaboration with her beloved off-track Thoroughbred Murray, Werner used humor to get at the nub of life with horses. In the Dear Murray column, frustrated horses would “write” to the all-knowing ex-racehorse, whose Jockey Club name was Phantom Writer, asking for advice on […]

Fair Weather Stan hacks with Lisa Molloy

Once starved racehorse blooms in good health

Fair Weather Stan, the multiple graded stakes winner who nearly died of starvation in January, is so fat with good health that his rescuer claims he has a “muffin top.” As in, not-ready-for-the-beach “muffin top.” “He’s now just under 1,200 pounds and I’ve finally been able to reduce his feed to a normal amount,” says well-known off-track Thoroughbred trainer Lisa Molloy. Under constant care and supervision since he first arrived wobbling off the van at her Virginia-based facility, Lisa Molloy Training Stables, Stan has since blossomed with health. Molloy explains, “He was fed a high protein, high fat diet starting […]

On a hunt. Photo courtesy Anne Hambelton

Steppenwolfer’s life after Derby loss is rosy

As a tremendous wall of horses surged toward the 2006 Kentucky Derby finish line, each powerful animal and tightly coiled jockey fighting for the honor of winning the fabled blanket of roses, it was one of the losers that day whose life would become, like lyrics to a song, a “promised rose garden.” Though the gorgeous gray stallion Steppenwolfer was trounced by Barbaro and Bluegrass Cat, he finished a respectful third in racing’s most widely watched contest, but yet, in the contest for quality of life, eventually won the Triple Crown. After his owners had the stallion gelded, they agreed […]