This is Goldie, the horse I leased for two years.

Goldie is Lauren’s pride and joy, an OTTB she adopted at ten years old and retrained for Hunters. A month before we found Bizzy, I was quietly absorbed in grooming Goldie for a show the next day. It was the hot beginning of September, and Lauren and I had been looking for a horse for me to buy. Because cost was an issue we had been checking out free lease options. But the woman with warmbloods to free lease never came through. The camp horse named Blueberry decided, on my second visit to him in Maine, to grab the bit and run away with me after jumps. And when we went to see a Paint who loved to jump, we were instead shown a huge, green draft named Rosie, trained by a woman who liked to somersault off her back.

While I stood there grooming Goldie, I thought, “Why don’t we just make me another Goldie?” Lauren made the same suggestion from the ground while I was mounted and about to go into the ring at the show the very next day.

She found the ad on CANTER and again on a Facebook feed for Horses for Sale in New England under $2000. There was a picture of a sleek horse, with the note “in race condition.”

And, the fact is, we love Thoroughbreds.