A little bit of history

I got the most wonderful email earlier in the week from a woman who works at Suffolk Downs, the racetrack in MA that Lucy retired out of. Here's the email, which I am posting with Jess's permission:

Hi Kate,

A friend passed along your blog as she was sure I would find it of great interest and I did. I work at Suffolk Downs as the television personality and publicist and I remember your lovely filly very well. I always wondered what happened to her and I am so pleased to see that she wound up with someone like you - she looks phenomenal. I took home my first OTTB this past fall and he is the great love of my life.

Just wanted to say good work.

Jessica

This email put me on cloud 9 for a number of reasons:

1. How cool is it that my blog is out there and reaching people from Lucy's past?!
2. It is so awesome that Lucy was special enough even as a terrible racehorse, that Jess remembers her from two years ago! Just think about all the horses that pass through a racecourse.
3. Now I know a bit more about what she was like before I bought her!
4. It was so sweet of Jess to send me this email and I definitely blushed at all of her compliments!!

Jess and I emailed back and forth this week and one thing I asked her was if she was in touch with any of the jockeys who exercised her or rode her. To my delight, she emailed me yesterday to tell me that she had spoken with one of the jockeys who raced L, and the jockey "remembered her right away". She told Jess that you could never ride Lucy with a stick, because the more the jockey hit her to get her to run faster, the slower she went. I find this *hilarious* because "slow" is not a word I'd ever use to describe my horse, although compared to some of the very fast racehorses she was competing against, I can understand that she might be considered slow. But most of my time riding her has been spent trying to get her to slow down, not speed up, and I rarely carry a crop with her. If I do carry a crop I use it as a threat ("ok, you want to play it like that!? well check out my WEAPON!"). Good news is that I rarely EVER use it on her, but carrying it with me works as a little bit of motivation for her to behave (not like she ever really cares about consequences, as is demonstrated by her many naughty moments over the winter).

Anyway, very cool :D

Jess has told me she wants to be a resource of information for anyone whose horse raced at Suffolk, so if you have a Suffolk OTTB and want to find more info about your horse, let me know and I will put you in touch with her. She is very nice and very helpful!!

Here's a photo of Lucy from when she first came off the track. Her last race was just a few days before this photo was taken, and here she was being prepared to be sold to her first home.