Imagination.

Imagination is something all horse people share,although some are better at it than others. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the star power in each spring’s new foals, in fact it is almost impossible not too. But to imagine that a half-starved, sore-footed, washed-up race horse could have a great future takes whole lot more effort. But he did. And saving Fete gave us a valuable lesson here at Tranquility Farm, where we have almost come to expect happy endings.

We get a lot of calls from people who are discouraged and want us to take on a horse that they have “rescued” from the racetrack. Because we could never fit all these horses into our farm we have tried to offer some useful advice in our
"Guide to Retraining your Racehorse". But there is a footnote that we forgot to include. And that is not to give up.


Fete didn’t give up although when he came to us he was a bag of bones that could barely walk. And Charity Fillmore didn’t give up believing that the horse she had once loved as a two- year- old could one day come to live with her family, although he was years and a continent away. And so ends our story, with another lesson learned. No matter how horses come into our lives they all have something to teach us. If you feel that you are hitting the wall with your horse it may be that you are just looking for the door.