Stories about your favorite retired racehorses. For archived stories, click here.
His story certainly wasn’t written on the racetrack. He made one career start at Remington Park in 2001, finished a dismal 11th and earned $62. What he accomplished – and the many lives he touched – in the years since made Chama the horse of a lifetime for several people.
In 2005, flat trainer Dale Romans unknowingly set into motion a chain of events that led to one of the greatest accomplishments of late steeplechase trainer Tom Voss’ career. And it all began with a horse Romans didn’t like.
The last thing one would expect to find amidst a bustling retail metropolis is a Thoroughbred nursery. But tucked behind a row of evergreens on the busiest stretch of asphalt in Clementon, N.J., is exactly that.
In the summer of 2019, Jamie Wyeth formulated a plan to honor his late wife, Phyllis Mills Wyeth, at their Point Lookout Farm in Pennsylvania. For Phyllis, breeder and owner of Belmont Stakes winner and now top stallion Union Rags, Thoroughbreds were a lifelong passion.
"He was a proper hurdle horse. Low and quick, efficient. That’s where he excelled. He just rolled over them like speedbumps; he left holes in the hedges. America suited him down to a tee.”
In the show ring, he is Ferdinand The Bull. At home, he is Ferdinand (never Ferd or Fred). To The Jockey Club, he’s Cugino. By any name, he has been the ultimate partner and family horse for Megan Childs Campbell for 15 years.
Bob Haynes stood at the rail of the Laurel Park paddock in April 2006, studying the horse he was about to claim. Running for a $20,000 tag, the horse checked off all the boxes for Haynes. The 4-year-old Maryland-bred Partner’s Hero gelding was strong, well built, a good mover. Spotting Bird Mobberley, daughter of breeder/owner/trainer Gretchen, Haynes saw something else he wanted – the sunglasses perched on Bird’s head.
Carl “Bunny” Meister Jr. and his wife, Linda, received an offer they couldn’t refuse. The buyers of their 133-acre Tarad Hill Farm in West Chester, Pa., planned to build a new home on the property, and the Meisters were welcome to stay in the farmhouse Bunny has occupied since the 1960s. But the change in ownership dictated that the Meisters rehome their horses, several of whom have lived at Tarad Hill for years.
