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Maggie's Charm is an OTTB adopted off the track at Laurel Park. Photo by Christopher McCauley

Photo of the Week: Charmed, I’m sure

Maggie’s Charm was retired by breeder Lorraine Reilly and her connections to a houseful of boys and a mother who desperately needed to reward her hard work with the perfect equine companion, says Barclay Lipsey McCauley. “She was a gift to myself after three boys,” she says. “I adopted her through Thoroughbred Placement Resources at the Laurel racetrack, when she was 3 ½. She had failed at about six races, so I brought her home and retrained her myself.” An amateur rider in the hunter/jumper ring, McCauley was astounded to discover how well Maggie’s Charm listens, and by her gentle […]

Moon's Treasure was rescued three years ago from a field of dead horses in the East Everglades. Today, he is entering beginner dressage competition.

A Treasure plucked from the ruins of horse hell

As seven dead horses lay strewn like garbage among the tall cane choking the desolate East Everglades property, Moon’s Treasure was lifted from hand to caring hand, as if on a magic carpet. And from the bowels of horse hell he was transported on a new path to becoming: a show horse. The Florida-bred chestnut stallion who was vanned off the Calder Race Track after a July 8, 2011 race was found wasting away on a putrid property where a paralyzed dog lay barking in the field, and a dead horse lay sprawled near the front door of a desolate farmhouse, […]

Forbidden Apple in his heyday wins the Kelso Handicap. Photo by and courtesy of Adam Coglianese

Forbidden Apple, trainer reunite in retirement

Looking down upon the Hong Kong paddock from high up in the tiered architectural wonder of the Sha Tin racetrack, John Evans was thunderstruck. “It was just so beautiful,” recalls the longtime race trainer. “There must have been 300 gardeners and everywhere you looked there were flowers. It was dazzling!” And the dark bay, nearly black racehorse, Forbidden Apple, equally dazzling, and on whose coattails he had ridden halfway around the world for a shot at glory on the international stage and a $4 million purse, still gives the trainer-turned Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation barn manager something to smile about. To […]