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Mrsmargie is a 5-year-old mare at Su

All hands on deck to help Suffolk T-breds

An outpouring of help from horsemen, volunteers and businesses has coalesced into “a remarkable hands on effort” to help ex-racehorse Thoroughbreds in the somber waning days of the Suffolk Downs racetrack. So says Dawn Carey Kirlin, CANTER New England board member, who along with Kim Rigolini and many other CANTER volunteers, is working hard to make sure racehorses have some place to go when the track closes Oct. 4. An Open House set for Saturday, Sept. 27 has attracted the support of businesses such as Dover Saddlery and Poulin Grain of Vermont, as well horse shippers, who will stand at […]

Phoenix and Tricia Sybersma of Ontario work on calming exercises as the mare puts her previous hardships behind her.

A T-bred named Phoenix flies away safe

Phoenix waited for months for a plane to come and lift her away from the Cayman Islands, where she had suffered and was saved. When a big, DHL flight finally arrived that could transport horses, the pretty bay Thoroughbred mare walked on with such calm that a veterinarian was overheard to ask if she’d been tranquilized. She had not. But perhaps a sixth sense told her that getting away from the scrubby island where she’d nearly starved to death was her ticket to something far better, and she eagerly stepped onto the plane, and confidently rode 33,000 feet in the […]

Longtime Boston-based Thoroughbred advocate Jennifer Montfort adopts a Suffolk Downs racehorse as an era ends, and the track closes.

From Suffolk with love, race fan gets a T-bred

After spending years helping others find their dream horse at Suffolk Downs, longtime horse advocate and volunteer Jennifer Montfort went for it last weekend: she bought a horse! In horse country, a bold step like this may elicit a shrug or a comment like, “So what?” But, in Boston, Mass., where affordable stabling is about as hard to come by as affordable anything, Montfort decided to throw caution to the wind and purchase 4-year-old Caristo. “It all happened very quickly,” Montfort says. “I first met Caristo last year when he was a new 3-year-old in John and Kathy Botty’s barn, […]