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Sing Me Back Home, a Graded Stakes Placed gelding spends a last moment with devoted owner Christina Sawelsky. Photo by Elisabeth Sawelsky

In tribute to her warhorse, 2 others find a home

As the sun set on their modest old barn, racing warhorse Sing Me Back Home turned his face toward the woman who loved him. And though cancerous tumors had pushed his once finely sculpted head into a battlefield of  lumps, Christina Sawelsky reached up and pulled him close. Holding his muzzle with her right hand, she leaned in and kissed his eye, thanking him for being such a good friend to her these past five years, and wishing him Godspeed. Sing Me Back Home Sire: Homebuilder Dam: Pocket Tunes, by Tunerup Foal date: Feb. 24, 1998 Earnings: $619, 541 in […]

Wilson and Lori Reed, wearing her Team Wilson visor, have a chat.

A gelding saved in agonizing decision at auction

It was down to the dark gelding or the barren broodmare; she could only take one. Knowing that whoever she passed over would most likely meet a horrific end in the slaughterhouse, Beverly Strauss of MidAtlantic Horse Rescue agonized between the two horses at the New Holland auction on a hot July day in 2006. In the end, and with a breaking heart, she chose the gelding. Relatively young at age nine, the off-track Thoroughbred who previously raced under the Jockey Club name Pardner, a son of wining racehorse Deputy Minister, was squeezed onto a trailer heading for the safe haven […]

Fasig-Tipton and Blue Horse Charities have pledged $50,000 to replace the Old Friends barn destroyed by fire last weekend. Photo courtesy Old Friends

Fasig-Tipton gives $50K to rebuild at Old Friends

GEORGETOWN, KY – Old Friends founder and President Michael Blowen announced today that Fasig-Tipton, through its subsidiary Blue Horse Charities, has donated $50,000 toward the cost of rebuilding a barn destroyed in a fast-moving fire. The horse charity’s “hospital barn” burned to the ground last weekend after the roof caught fire. Two horses, Alphabet Soup and Archie’s Echo, were evacuated minutes before the structure became fully engulfed. No horses or people were injured in the blaze. Soon after the conflagration, Old Friends began fundraising to build a state-of-the-art, fireproof structure. Today Blowen excitedly announced that with the Fasig-Tipton/Blue Horse Charities […]