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OTTB ‘shock and awe’ in Quarter Horse country

By on August 18, 2016

Runbridled and Tennessee barrel racer Melanie Lyell are a couple of renegades in Quarter Horse country. And soon they'll be running barrels at the Retired Racehorse Project's Thoroughbred Makeover Show.

Runbridled and Tennessee barrel racer Melanie Lyell are a couple of renegades in Quarter Horse country. And soon they’ll be running barrels at the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover Show.

The most shocking part about riding a Thoroughbred in Quarter Horse country is how easy it’s been.

So says longtime barrel racer Melanie Lyell of Tennessee.

There were no explosive moments. No funny business with orange barrels. And the only thing that has been “run away with” is the heart of the equestrian who says her jaw drops nearly every day she places a western saddle on the back of her seasoned ex-racehorse Runbridled and goes for a slow, steady ride.

“Before I adopted Runbridled, I’d heard so many stories in the Quarter Horse world,” says Lyell, a Tennessee equestrian. “Everyone said Thoroughbreds would never make a barrel horse: They’re too big. They’re explosive. Sitting on one is like sitting on a ticking time bomb.”

So Runbridled was quite the surprise.

Runbridled
Barn name: Grace
Sire: My Unbridled
Dam: Lightly Decorated, by Brightly Decorated
Foal date: April 28, 2010Shortly after Lyell adopted the bay mare with 25 racing starts, everything she’d ever heard about Thoroughbreds just fell away as they took turns around the arena.

“I noticed she was really really, broke, and I didn’t expect that. I thought she’d feel pushy on the bit, stiff through her body, and want to run left,” she says. “I was absolutely blown away. Not only wasn’t she hot, she’s kind of lazy. And the biggest challenge she has is picking up her left lead, which is crazy. She’ll pick up her right all day long.”

Her experience has taught her to go with her gut instincts, and let the naysaying nabobs worry about themselves.

Runbridled and Melanie enjoy a quiet moment.

Runbridled and Melanie enjoy a quiet moment.

Though she was hesitant at first to jump onto the Thoroughbred bandwagon, she was quickly swayed when she met her beautiful mare at Thoroughbred adoption agency Second Stride of Kentucky. “My friend Brittany Wright, who grew up in the hunter/jumper world, had told me good stories about Thoroughbreds. Then one day she turned up with this OTTB named Seton Hall, who raced until he was 7 or 8. I thought Brittany had lost it. But, lo and behold, he turned out to be a great horse.

Fast forward to October 2015 and an invitation to tag along with her friend on a road trip back to Second Stride.

“We drove up together and I’d picked out a mare I liked. Not Runbridled, but a different one. But, as we walked out of the barn I saw this bay mare standing in a round pen, and she was just so pretty and well put together. She’d only been on the premises for two days, and was still racing fit. But, she just had the look to me. She looked like a barrel horse should look.”

A couple weeks later, on Oct. 30, 2015, Lyell welcomed Runbridled into her life. And had her heart stolen.

“I never expected her to be so calm, so patient, and so smart,” she says. “She’s such a hard worker, and a perfectionist. With each task I ask of her, she gives me her all. And with every ounce of love I show her, she gives it back tenfold.”

—Lyell will show Runbridled at the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover in Kentucky Oct. 28

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Storybook karma leads OTTB to the top

By on August 17, 2016

Real Gentleman won 2 blue ribbons last weekend in Prix St. Georges competition.

Real Gentleman won 2 blue ribbons last weekend in Prix St. Georges competition. Photo by and courtesy of Susan Correia

An unsung racehorse just four years off the track won two blue ribbons last weekend in the kind of dressage competition few horses, of any breed, ever attain.

Real Gentleman, a low-claimer who ran 41 races bouncing between Boston’s Suffolk Downs and the Finger Lakes racetrack played such a winning hand in two Prix St. Georges shows last weekend that even the judges gushed, a little, in the collective remarks portion of the score sheet.

“A pleasure to watch such lovely basics,” wrote the judge, who was among those giving the OTTB the highest scores in FEI rated shows, Oyster River 1 and Oyster River 2, at the University of New Hampshire’s show grounds in Durham, N.H.

Real Gentleman
Barn name: Rio
Sire: Gone for Real
Dam: Sunshine Star, by Star de Naskra
Foal date: Feb. 5, 2006Upon reading words like that, so rarely given by a judge for any horse, owner Ann Seamonds felt as though “storybook karma” had been at play. “We’ve only had him for four-and-a-half years, so I think it’s truly remarkable that he has not only competing at Prix St. Georges, but he won two blue ribbons after his debut in June.”

Real Gentleman scored a 68.81 in the Oyster River 1, beating nine other horses, and a 66.44 in Oyster River 2, beating six other horses. He also won the Jockey Club TIP Award, an honor bestowed upon high performance ex-racehorses turned sport horses.

Though his acquired skill set, which is propelling the dark bay up the FEI ranks, is not found in many horses, this gelding just has the mind for it —“I think the mind is the most important thing,” says Seamonds. And, he has the hands-on training of Pan Am Games-winning dressage rider Mary Howard of Brentwood, N.H., and the talent of rider Bethany Larsen. And perhaps a little something extra.

Rio wins top honors last weekend in Prix St. Georges. Photo by and courtesy of Susan Correia

Rio wins top honors last weekend in Prix St. Georges. Photo by and courtesy of Susan Correia

“I always felt there was something bigger at play with this horse. I’m one of those people who think things happen for a reason. And the other day when I was talking with his old racetrack owner Christopher Trakas, I became even more convinced,” she says. Before the gelding’s name was registered with the Jockey Club as Real Gentleman, his foal name was Six Stars. And, the horse now trains at Five Stars Farm, where he is truly a star in his own right. “I got goose bumps when Christopher found the foal papers and told me his original name was Six Stars. It’s so weird.”

Saying she was “blown away” by her gelding’s relaxed and confident performance over the weekend, the team has now set its sites on the Longfellow Dressage show in Nottingham, N.H., Seamonds is enjoying a fairy tale ride she never expected from the low-claimer she bought directly from Christopher Trakas.

“If you could have seen him, he was incredible. It was so hot that we walked him off the trailer, did a brief 10 minute warm-up, and he went right into the ring,” Seamonds says. “I think he put in his better performance in that show. He was so relaxed it was if he said, ‘I’ve got this. You just sit back and enjoy it.’ ”

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Tribute to Dear Murray of horse-column fame

By on August 16, 2016

Murray and Jody. Photo by Kim Vogee

Murray and Jody. Photo by Kim Vogee

California-based cartoonist and graphic designer Jody Livak Werner is an award-winning writer who offers her Thoroughbred’s perspective in her widely read OTTB column, Dear Murray.

The humorous essays, which swept onto the Facebook scene and attracted 20,000 fans in a few short months, offers a horse’s perspective on all those silly humans who ride them. Via a clever collaboration with her beloved off-track Thoroughbred Murray, Werner deftly applies humor to get at the nub of life with horses.

In the Dear Murray column, frustrated horses “write” to the all-knowing ex-racehorse, whose Jockey Club name was Phantom Writer, asking for advice on topics such as “nervous human” riders—to which Murray often advised administration of a “calming agent” — a.k.a. beer.

Five days a week, Werner and her equine partner of 20 years hammered out funny, quirky columns to an adoring fan base. And, even after Murray died suddenly, in the peak of health, after a stall accident in August 2012, Werner continued the column for an audience that is helping her as much as she helps them.

In this Clubhouse Q&A, Werner discusses her phenomenal Murray—the horse she never fell from, who took home more blue ribbons than she can count, and who was the best life partner she ever had.

Q: How did Murray come into your life?

He literally just fell into my lap. I had just found a wonderful home for my older Appendix Quarter Horse, and I was looking for my next horse on a zero budget. Not everybody with horses has deep pockets, and my trainer at the time, Dawn Casey, had heard about a horse who’d been starved and abused, and they sent me a little videotape of him.

Q: The video showed you his desire to please people, even after suffering at their hands.

Murray’s nickname was “The Metronome” because of his steady rhythm. Photo by Sheri Scott Photography

Murray’s nickname was “The Metronome” because of his steady rhythm. Photo by Sheri Scott Photography

Here was this horse who was shaggy, his tail chewed off, who was 300 pounds underweight, and he was free-jumping five-foot square Oxers for them. They waved their hands around and he was clearly choosing to do this for them.

Q: And then the horse in the video arrived at your place.

It was January 1, 1994 when they brought him in my trailer and left him. They said keep him for a while, and see what you think. He stepped off the trailer and he looked like a train wreck.

His personality was pretty crusty at first. He’d pin his ears and he chased me out of his stall. Clearly he had a lot of baggage. But, once he figured things out, after about a week, he started to follow me around like a puppy.

Q: From those humble beginnings, a show horse was made in no time.

When he arrived in January, he could trot and gallop. By November of the same year, we were winning 3-foot amateur adult hunter classes. We were winning championships within several months of me getting him.

He could always be counted on for his beautiful jumping style. O’Neill Photography photo

He could always be counted on for his beautiful jumping style. O’Neill Photography photo

Normally I would not rush a horse in training, but he was such a fast learner. I’d show him something and it was if he would say, “OK! OK! I get it. I’m bored.”

He was the most incredible horse that I ever had the pleasure to sit on. We went on to do the 3-6, and you asked me about highlights of our career, and I realized that everyday was such a highlight. He always came out of the ring with blue ribbons and championships. And yet, he was the laziest Thoroughbred you’ve ever seen. I could barely get him to go. But when he entered the ring, he’d perk up and turn it on for two minutes, win, and then go back to sleep.

Q: How did the Dear Murray column materialize?

And the newsletter went up on the barn’s website, and I started to throw my cartoons and a couple of Dear Murray columns up on my Facebook page, and my fans loved it.At one point, I changed barns, and we decided we should do a barn newsletter. You know how this is, everybody said they’d contribute, but in the end, it was pretty much up to me. So I decided to give Murray his own newsletter. I made up the letters to him, and the answers.

I gave Dear Murray his own Facebook page in May 2012 and it took off. The sad thing was that I lost him in August 2012.

Q: At this point, the Dear Murray column and fans became even more important to you.

Murray was her best friend. Photo by Kim Vogee

Murray was her best friend. Photo by Kim Vogee

After I told his Facebook fans that Murray had “gone over the Rainbow Bridge,” I got emails from compete strangers who’d lost their horses. These complete strangers got me through it.

Murray died in perfect health, in the safety of his stall. Somehow, in the middle of the night, he shattered his leg. It happened eight months ago, but it feels like it just happened.

After he died, people flocked to the page. They shared some really poignant stories of their own losses, and the page became a support system for people who have lost their horses. I don’t know where else I would have gotten through this except on his page, and through the kindness of strangers.

Q: Although Murray is gone, it seems his spirit lives on in Dear Murray.

The column has become something bigger than I ever imagined. By using his voice, it comforts others, and it helps keep him alive for me. I’ve been asked by fans to write a book, and I have every intention of doing it, it’s just a matter of finding the time.

Dear Murray was a finalist in two categories, the talking animal and best newcomer. After a two-month voting period, the winners were chosen by a combination of the public vote and an expert panel. The public vote accounted for 25 percent of the final score, and the expert panel, which was made up of 30 professionals, accounted for the other 75 percent.

Q: In the meantime, you recently won the Equine Social Media Award for Best Talking Animal. That must have been quite an honor!

Based on that, he won Best Talking Animal.

It was really a nice icing on the cake for me, and all I could think was that Murray won everything when he was here, and now he keeps on winning, even though he’s in horse heaven. — Originally published on April 30, 2013.

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