Tearful breeder strikes deal for beloved horse
A successful race mare who was claimed in a four-way shake at the Saratoga Race Course last month was well on her way to continuing on with her demanding race career when her original breeder stepped up and pleaded that the mare’s new owners allow her to take the horse home. And much to the shock of one-time racehorse breeder Kelly Zanella, the new connections of race mare Run a Dubb Dubb, 6, did not laugh. Nor did they quibble. Though race owner Michael Pino had won the shake on a claim on Dubb after the mare knocked in her […]
Girl gets broodmare out of kill pen; ‘I promised’
A lumpy-legged Thoroughbred broodmare escaped death in a Canadian slaughterhouse last summer after a young girl, who had befriended the animal in her last hours, pleaded with adults to spare her. The deal had already been made; the old mare dubbed “Ruby” was set to ship to a Canadian slaughterhouse when the last human to touch the mare’s soft black-and-tan muzzle turned out to hold all the cards in the fate of this one horse. “I call my daughter Emma my tiny, little horse whisperer,” says longtime horseman and rescue volunteer Kay O’Hanlon Myruski of Goshen, N.Y. “She’d honed in […]
A T’bred danced away from death; twinkle toes
A ragged racehorse, who narrowly escaped the slaughterhouse with the help of a kind stranger, has blossomed into a fancy stepping dressage prospect loved beyond measure. Got the Urge, a 3-year-old Thoroughbred gelding who wound up at the Camelot Auction in 2013, made it out on Thanksgiving Day after Rhiannon Toman awoke from nightmares about the vulnerable animal and quickly decided to save him. And in no time, the bleak animal has gone from an 800 pound, ewe-necked horse to a beautiful mover admired by many in just a few short years. Affectionately known as Surge, his rags-to-riches story turned on […]