Counting our blessings.

Tranquility Farm thanks the Thoroughbred Owners of California CARMA fund for the wonderful support we received in the form of an annual grant that was awarded to us yesterday at Santa Anita Park. The contributions of California owners to the CARMA fund will help us tremendously in the coming year as we are caring for over one hundred horses on this busy little farm, with horses waiting in the wings. Owners are realizing in ever-greater numbers that with just a little help and planning, life after racing can be very good for the horses. To all who support, we thank you!

We would also like to thank all the wonderful individuals who sent donations and goodwill to Tranquility Farm this holiday season for their kindness.There are carrots in their feed tubs every day thanks to you folks!

Today is the Gr. 2 San Gabriel Handicap at Santa Anita, and as we thank our wonderful supporters we also remember the accomplishments our retiree Denied, who ran third in the San Gabriel Handicap in 2003. After racing thirty one times and retiring at age ten with earnings of $434, 674, Denied depends entirely upon the contributions of charity to insure his retirement. Here is a perfect example of why we need a community fund to care for horses at the conclusion of their racing careers. I wish there was a way to explain to Denied how many wonderful people are standing behind him today, but since he is a horse I guess we will just have some more of those Christmas carrots, and once again, send out a big thanks to all of our supporters.

Happy Holidays!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS
FROM ALL YOUR FRIENDS AT TRANQUILITY FARM!

PLEASE HELP US TO FILL THEIR STOCKINGS WITH CARROTS THIS HOLIDAY SEASON!

AND ZENYATTA SAYS DON'T FORGET TO ORDER YOUR 2010 IN THE PRESENCE OF CHAMPIONS CALENDAR STARRING ME!
ALL PROCEEDS GO TO FEED THE HORSES AT TRANQUILITY FARM!

Today we celebrate the Feast of Epona

For centuries the Feast of Epona has been celebrated today, to honor the Celtic Goddess of the Horse, a powerful and significant presence in ancient European mythology. Epona is most often depicted as a white mare, sometimes with a lady upon her back, who is surrounded by foals, branches of ripe apples, and garlands of roses. Epona symbolized fertility and abundance, and around her silken neck she carried the keys to a happy afterlife for her mortal subjects. The horse and human happiness were forever wedded in the psyche of our ancestors, and those who revered Epona were given the keys to the kingdom.

In Great Britain, the birthplace of the Thoroughbred, there are fourteen hill carvings of white mares like the Great White Horse of Uffington. These enormous landscape features date from 1,000 BC or earlier, and they pre-date the worship in the British Isles of the European Goddess Epona. Clearly, the love and lore of horses has been with us from the earliest times.
Today there are those who love the Thoroughbred even though they may have never flown across the earth with a grace unknown to any who have only felt the cold insentient speed of steel. And yet they understand, here is a beauty worth protecting, and a taproot that returns us to the very threshold of our culture. We celebrate the horse today, the wild and the purebred, and remember that they have all been passed down to us for safekeeping from every generation since the dawn of time.

My Girl Siyah, adopted from Tranquility Farm in 2005.

Its Calendar Time!

ZENYATTA SAYS DON'T FORGET TO ORDER YOUR 2010 IN THE PRESENCE OF CHAMPIONS CALENDAR STARRING ME! ALL PROCEEDS GO TO FEED THE HORSES OF TRANQUILITY FARM!

A Good Direction.

It has been a very quiet week here at Tranquility Farm. We have had lots of snow, then lots of mud, then lots of rain and nary a soul has ventured out. Tis the season. The horses have all become used to being tucked in early and having their breakfast in the stall before they go out into the wet paddocks for the day. Contentment reigns.
Good Direction is about to leave us for a wonderful home with a woman who simply wants a beautiful and lovable horse in her life. Watching him happily munching his hay it is incredible to think that just last December he was discovered on a feedlot in Fallon, NV, standing miserably in the mud with a bowed tendon. Good Direction was a throwaway, doomed for the price of a few months rehabilitation.
The cycle of abandonment and salvation endlessly repeats itself to the point that the stories are nearly unbearable to write. The ultimate irony is that the ones we cannot save become the grim statistics of studies and surveys that are slyly thrown back in our faces by those seeking to reinstate horse slaughter in this country. People who turn horse ownership from a priviledge into a pathology.

My last post announced the excellent position taken by the New York Racing Association to ban owners and trainers who would do to their horses what was done to Good Direction. It is a great step forward, but the flip side of that golden coin is that tracks with an anti-slaughter policy must create a fund to channel horses to appropriate non-profits for rehabilitation and adoption. Without that we once again have hollow promises, and no gain for the horses. It's time to get to work.

Good news to share.

This is just in:
The New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) has announced an anti-slaughter policy that introduces harsh penalties to offending horsemen while encouraging them to support horse rescue and adoption initiatives.
The newly created policy is as follows:
Any owner or trainer stabled at a New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) track found to have directly or indirectly sold a horse for slaughter will have his or her stalls permanently revoked from all NYRA tracks. NYRA requires its horsemen to conduct due diligence on those buying horses and encourages them to support rescue and adoption efforts and to find humane ways of dealing with horses unable to continue racing.
“We are fully committed to protecting our sport’s equine athletes,” said NYRA President and CEO Charles Hayward. “This policy sends the message that horse slaughter will not be tolerated and that those participating in this practice, either knowingly or for lack of due diligence, will not be welcome at Aqueduct, Belmont Park, or Saratoga.”


ZENYATTA SAYS PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO ORDER YOUR 2010 IN THE PRESENCE OF CHAMPIONS CALENDAR STARRING ME! ALL PROCEEDS GO TO FEED THE HORSES OF TRANQUILITY FARM!

Blizzard!

We had our first real blizzard of the season last night, a beautiful whiteout that brings all the horses from the individual paddocks into their stalls. We had 38 horses in the barn last night, and today there are 38 stalls to clean, but who counts? The horses looked really surprised to see it snowing so hard.
Early this morning they all waited eagerly for their breakfast. Even with their shelters I always worry about the pasture horses when we have a really bad storm, but they seem to thrive in the weather.
After all the pasture horses were fed it was time to take the rest out of the barn..
There were some lovely dances….FABULOSO And bedlam when the weanlings went out the door. For their own good we put them in a small paddock today instead of the pasture.
I really didn’t need to see how fast they could run in the snow before they figured out it took ten lengths to stop.

Fete, A Love Story.

Fete was rescued because he needed us. As simple as that. He was one of the very good racehorses that somehow fell into neglect at the end of his racing career, in the shadow world between "wanted" and "unwanted". Fete was a project.

Not too often can we share with you a story with a fairytale ending, but here thanks to Jay Hovdey and the Daily Racing Form, is the story of Fete.
Old Warriors Two of the Lucky Ones, by Jay Hovdey
Fete at Tranquility Farm, December, 2009.

Tranquility Farm deeply appreciates the sponsorship of Dell Hancock and Adele Dilschnieder for Fete's transportation home.

Bonanza Two goes home.

The handsome Bonanza Two left us today with his new family, Tom and Canda Parker, and he will soon be headed with them to their retirement home on a ranch in Utah. As aristocratic as this son of Two Punch appears to be, he is in fact a big, solid, down-to-earth, sensible horse that is sure to thrive in a ranch and family environment. Bo will be living with their rescued paint mare, and somehow, I think it won't be long until other horses join their little herd. Thank you Tom and Canda,for giving Bo his forever home, and thank you Petfinders.com for connecting us with such wonderful adopters!