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Mr. Wolverine, left, meets up with Lava Man at a War Horse schooling show at the Thoroughbred Classic Horse Show in California

Mr. Wolverine delights friends past and present

After multiple graded stakes racehorse Mr.Wolverine capped off his racing career by defeating Lava Man on the track he has eased into life as a family pet so cushy that his owners suspect he is really more dog than racehorse. “If I were to open his stall door, he’d follow us all around,” says Lisa Pratt, owner of Mr. Wolverine since 2010. “He does tricks. He has learned to bow, and he gives kisses for peppermints.” In between lavish shows of affection, and tricks, the plain bay has agreeably taught Pratt’s daughters Emma, 11 and Kaylee, 7 to ride in […]

Nancy Perry, senior vice president of government relations of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals beams with her new OTTB, Atticus

ASPCA exec gets a Thoroughbred for Christmas

Long before Nancy Perry assumed the helm of a powerful position at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), she was a horse-crazy kid riding around the California show circuit on her off-track Thoroughbred. She owned that horse until he died at age 26, and cherished his memory as she went on with her life. Eventually she became the senior vice president of government relations at the ASPCA, a role that would find her lobbying hard in Washington against horse slaughter. And as she worked, her childhood love of Thoroughbreds was rekindled so intensely that as […]

Her fear of riding gone, Lisa and Monster enjoy a romp. Photo by Allie Conrad

Kissing a Monster, she finds her prince

Lisa Gubenia was done. Scrambling to her feet, brushing off the dirt, the 46-year-old mother of two wept as she announced to her friend Allie Conrad that the fall she had just taken, from the back of her ex-racehorse who had simply “exploded” on a trail ride, was like a final call to hang up her tack. She had to quit riding. “I loved this horse, and I tried so hard to make it work, but I constantly got bucked off,” Gubenia says of an OTTB who she owned for three years, and who was eventually euthanized after being deemed […]