BloodHorse.com

A few years ago, Nicole Matthews decided she was ready to adopt a horse. “It was a big, but natural decision for me,” said Matthews, who has owned horses off and on throughout the years. “My grandparents raised me, and horses were always a main element in my life. I was a horse crazy child and that has never changed.” When a local barn ...

Many of you may have already read in the updated section of the previous blog that Hotstufanthensome has found a forever home, but I wanted to make a separate post to make sure everyone saw the great news. After much consideration of several individuals and organizations that offered to take Hotstufandthensome, New Vocations announced Jan. 12 ...

How is it that so many successful and well-known horses can so quickly fade out of importance and somehow find themselves homeless and unwanted? This was the question asked by Anna Ford of New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program when she called last week to inform me that Hotstufanthensome, a dual graded stakes winner and earner of more than ...

Our Mims Retirement Haven is a pretty incredible place that is bursting at the seams with retired mares that have excelled either on the track, as broodmares, or simply with their shining personalities. I thought it was definitely time that I highlight some of these ladies' stories as well as the selfless and dedicated organization which they ...

I had a really neat experience on Dec. 2. After writing this blog last winter about Thoroughbreds in Tinsel Town, and interviewing Cari Swanson of Swanson Peterson Productions, my editor informed me that Arctic Bright, a white colt I had also previously written about had been recruited by that company to train for a career in the movie ...

Like some Thoroughbreds, Smarty’s Gold, a 4-year-old son of Smarty Jones, just wasn’t cut out to be a racehorse. Trained by Michael Gorham, he failed to win in eight starts on the northeast circuit, and was shelved this spring with a minor injury after campaigning for just two seasons. Smarty’s Gold’s connections decided the chestnut colt may be ...

I don’t often feature jockeys on this blog, so I figured it was about time when I discovered this sweet story about Robby Albarado while scanning through some old emails I had saved. Albarado, who as of Nov. 23 has won 4,256 races and amassed earnings of $170,076,795, was recently a special guest at the first grade class at Squires Elementary ...

1. Visiting with trainers and jockeys during cold mornings on the Churchill Downs backstretch during the week before the Breeders Cup…I especially enjoyed my chat with trainer Steve Hobby in barn 15, where he told me all about his longshot BC Turf contender, Telling. I was really rooting for this horse; it would have made for a great story, ...

Wow, yesterday was an eventful day! I left Lexington around 5:30 a.m. to drive to Louisville so I could be on the backstretch for training hours, talked to a few trainers about their Breeders’ Cup Turf (gr. IT) contenders, saw several of the European horses try out the Churchill dirt and turf for the first time, experienced Zenyatta’s arrival in ...

Well, I have my work cut out for me this year at the Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs. For the first time, instead of just focusing on Breeders’ Cup news, I will be covering one of the 14 races—the Emirates Airline BC Turf (gr. I) Nov. 6. There were 11 horses pre-entered in the race, and not surprisingly, six of those contenders were bred and/or ...