What started as a couple of extravagant gifts has prompted a lifelong passion for horses for Harmony Training Center owner Theresa Moore, who became involved in Thoroughbred racing and breeding through the most unlikely of connections—her dentist.
It’s not every day that the man who works on your smile buys you a horse. But such was the case with Moore’s daughter Stacey, whose wedding gift from Dr. Warren Center was a weanling filly from the first crop of his stallion, Kipling.
“We thought it was a joke,” remembered Moore, a former schoolteacher, who now operates Harmony near Inola, Okla., and races horses with her husband, Joe, a retired auditor for WalMart. “We knew (Center) had gotten into horses, but when he gave my daughter the (foal registration) papers, I said, ‘Warren, don’t you think that’s a tad over the top? I have a house with a backyard that won’t accommodate a horse.' He said we could sell her or just see what happens.”
At her daughter’s urging, however, Moore wound up racing the horse with her in partnership, and as the cliché goes, the rest is history.
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