For Our Mims, a safe haven was formed

As a child Jeanne Mirabito had loved Our Mims, the horse who would go on to help her found a retirement haven for older broodmares. Jeanne and Mims enjoy a moment.

As a young filly, Our Mims was racehorse royalty.

At 3, she was named the 1977 Eclipse Champion, and by age four, she’d won over $368,000 in her racing career.

By the time she was 22 her many foals carried the bloodlines of superstars such as Seattle Slew and Spectacular Bid, and passed great genes along to notable stakes performers including 1997 Breeder’s Cup Sprint winner Elmhurst.

But when she could no longer get in foal, Mims was turned out to pasture among cows, and far from any winner’s circle or breeding shed, grew old trying to forage enough food to survive.

Our Mims
Sire: Herbager
Dam: Sweet Tooth
Foal date: March 8, 1974
Results: Eclipse Award 1977 Champion 3 Year Old Filly
By the time childhood fan Jeanne Mirabito stumbled across the old mare, her coat was dull, her weight had dropped, and she was unrecognizable to the woman who as a youth had exclaimed that Mims was the “most beautiful horse in the world!”

“She wasn’t bright and shiny anymore. She was an angry horse who stood pawing at the ground and trying to kick my head,” Mirabito says of their first meeting in 1999.

Crouching from the flying hooves, Mirabito asked a farm coworker who the horse was, and upon hearing the answer said, “That’s the great Our Mims? She’s a champion!”

After that, Mirabito started bringing Mims a serving of grain everyday. At first the horse pinned her ears and remained aloof, but gradually her demeanor changed. Eventually she started meeting Mirabito at the field’s gate.

Mirabito and Our Mims greet visitors.

Then one day, Mirabito hitched a lead rope to Mims’ halter and led her out. She first brought the horse to a rescue, and when she had purchased a farm in Paris, Ky., Mims came home to live out her remaining years with Mirabito.

“I promised her that she would never want for anything again and that her name would never be forgotten.”

Now Mims’s name is both the title and inspiration for a federal nonprofit, Our Mims Retirement Haven, which Mirabito founded for retired broodmares on her farm.

Before Mims died of colic in 2003 at age 29, she once again lived the proud life of a prized mare. Her health was restored, and her coat grew shiny again. And from time to time, Mims stepped into the spotlight at various events promoting broodmare retirement.

The ladies enjoy a life in which nothing is asked of them but to be happy.

Thinking back on the trajectory of the retirement haven, which officially entered federal nonprofit status on Mims’ birthday, March 8, 2004, Mirabito credits both “sisters.” Mims was the inspiration. Sugar and Spice showed that there was always another horse to save.Today, Mims is buried at the Calumet Farm in Lexington, Ky., where she was foaled on March 8, 1974. Her remains rest alongside other horses in her family, including sister Sugar and Spice, a broodmare who also lived out her last days at Our Mims Retirement Haven.

“After Mims died, I didn’t think I could do it again. I told my husband it was too hard,” she says. “But when Sugar arrived, and I placed her in Mims’ old stall, she helped heal my heart.”

Jeanne Mirabito rides one of her personal horses, so grateful for the life she has now, and once enjoyed with Our Mims.

Sugar did not live long. She was a “Hospice case” when she came to the haven, and died just four months later, in September 2004 at age 28.

But in their short time together, Mirabito was deeply moved by the horse she says never ate her food until she first put her head on the chest of whoever was feeding her.

Mims and Sugar; their memory have become the inspiration that Mirabito finds to get up everyday and care for 14 rescued broodmares.  Horses she calls, “the ladies.”

They’ve earned a place in a warm stall.

“One of the hardest things for me to visualize is a mare like Our Mims being left alone in a back field.”

— This story was originally published on March 9, 2011.