Susan Salk
OTTBs complete ‘ride of a lifetime,’ cross USA
Nearly six months since setting out from California —on horseback— to tackle the ride of a lifetime across the United States, Valerie Ashker and Peter Friedman completed the 3,300-mile journey last weekend at Virginia’s Middleburg Training Track. Ashker’s daughter and four-star Eventer Laine Ashker wept with joy, as friends, family and supporters gathered to welcome the tired travelers, and thousands more watched online, as the two unflappable Thoroughbred ex-racehorses trotted onto the track as if they’d just come in from a hack. Glistening in good health, and sporting robust figures, Primitivo, 7, and Solar Express, 17, carried Ashker and Friedman […]
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Pikulski: All horses matter, deserve happiness
Diana Pikulski’s unwavering commitment to 825 ex-racehorses in the care of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation is, in part, an extension of her core belief in the sanctity of animal life, a powerful feeling dating back to childhood and a memory of lamb slaughter. She was 12 years old when she and her family visited a farm to buy ducks, and she unexpectedly saw lambs being slaughtered. Decades later, she vividly recalls the scene that changed her life. “I became a vegetarian after that, because once I made the connection between what I saw that day and the food on my plate, I said, this is not food for me,” […]
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Three Angels, a horse for whom love conquers all
With funny ears and a habit of placing her muzzle on her owner’s face when being spoken to, a racemare who spent her racing years in obscurity has emerged into the spotlight. Three Angels, a 12-year-old bay who ran primarily at Suffolk Downs in Boston before retiring together with her former groom Laurie Pagliarini Tuozzolo, recently participated in an OTTB breed demo at Equine Affaire. In and of itself, the flatwork and the venue were hardly the stuff of the Olympics, but the path to that show ring, fraught with uncertainty and a life-threatening illness, was worth far more than […]
