Photo of the Week: King of his domain

Isa My Love retired to sunny New Mexico with former law enforcement officers Bruce and Sandy Carr.

Isa My Love retired to sunny New Mexico with former law enforcement officers Bruce and Sandy Carr.

Four years ago, Sandy and Bruce Carr “fled the rains” of Seattle, and the pressures of dual law enforcement careers, to retire on a small, sun-drenched ranch in New Mexico.

And shortly thereafter, another retiree completed the picture.

Isa My Love, nicknamed Easy, had been retired to Texas horse charity LoneStar Outreach to Place Ex-Racers (LOPE) with small bone chips in his legs when the Carr family happened upon him while on holiday. While visiting their daughter in Austin, Sandy Carr decided to plug in the phrase “off-track Thoroughbred” into an online search, and up popped the charity, and her future horse.

Prior to this quest, Carr had been on many paths in horse sport. Those included carriage driving and owning shares in racehorses at Emerald Downs, she says. But for a long time, she knew her next chapter would include an OTTB.

Isa My Love
Sire: Istan
Dam: Affirmable, by Affirmed
Foal date: March 28, 2009
“I started reading your blog, so you’re part of the problem. I read it for almost a year, and I was thinking, oh-my-gosh, if I ever got another animal here to feed, I want to get an off-track Thoroughbred,” she says. “I was just getting ready to adopt a gelding who had brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars (in earnings), when the owners decided to keep him. We were going to my daughter’s house in Austin for Christmas, and so I just literally Googled off-track Thoroughbreds adoptions Texas” — and there he was, a beautiful, proud gelding with a high shine to his coat.

For the holiday, Carr’s husband put a $1 bill in her stocking, the amount LOPE charged them to take Easy to his new home in New Mexico.

“Easy had slight bone chips in his front legs, above the fetlock, and not affecting the joints. The Austin Equine Hospital ran all his X-rays and said he’d be fine for walk/trot and trail riding,” she says.

In this photo, Easy had just arrived at the ranch, and Sandy Carr was ready with her Nikon camera.

“I just happened to snap that picture after he arrived from Texas, where it was really warm, to rough-around-the-edges New Mexico,” she says. “The light is always perfect here, and he just looked so beautiful, with the juniper in the background, it looks like he’s surveying his kingdom.”

One response to “Photo of the Week: King of his domain”

  1. Sandy Carr

    Wonderful story Susan! Thank you for sharing the OTTB in my life — with the world!

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