After a brush with slaughter, a journey home
Night was closing in as the terrified filly ducked and darted away from strangers in the muddy paddock outside the Jones Livestock Sale in Oklahoma; she waited for her turn. Later in the evening of Oct. 23, after the farm equipment and tack had been bid on, the animals auction began. The goats, the cows and other livestock were sold first, and last came the horses. It was nearly 10 p.m. by the time the un-tattooed Thoroughbred filly scampered through the indoor corral, nervously passing 100 onlookers, including meat buyers. Nobody noticed her. “The auctioneer had little to say about […]
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Unconventional & hot, a t’bred steals the show
Mel Tilkicioglu was well on her way to happily-ever-after with her beautiful young Warmblood when a pair of surgeries and an unconventional gray Thoroughbred made her rethink her best laid plans. Temporarily horseless this past spring after her 6-year-old Warmblood went first for a planned surgery, and later for an unplanned one, Mel’s riding coach Linda Worley approached her with a suggestion and a word of caution about a flea-bitten gray named He’s a Crafty Cat. “She told me she knew of a horse, but he was a long shot,” Mel says. “She told me he was a little unconventional, […]
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She gave up jock’s life, and took t’bred with her
Anna K. Roberts coolly surveyed the good-looking colt as she readied to mount up for a race at Ellis Park. It was a hot day in Henderson, Ky., and Benziger, a bay brown Thoroughbred, was the 9-5 favorite back in August 2011. But to the young jockey, who was fresh from the North American Racing Academy, the aloof animal didn’t strike her one way or the other; they were there to do a job, and that was pretty much it. “I liked him well enough in the post parade, but he was just a horse I was riding in a […]
