From the artist Amber Brooks comes a symbol of the loves of my life-animal anyway-with the Poodle and the thoroughbred.

I just received the above watercolor drawing today. I LOVE it. It seems to sum up what is near and dear to my heart. What a talent this Georgia lady is. She owns poodles and horse like I.

From a conversation on my office about how siblings have the same genetics yet turn out so uniquely, so can be true in the thoroughbred world. Thoroughbreds are (usually) thoughtfully bred to produce the best assets a breeder can give them through choice of sire, dam and the rest of the relatives as well. I have blogged before about Bruno (registered name-Fiddler’s Pilgrim) being well-bred with AP Indy, Seattle Slew, Secretariat and others. I just had never spent too much time looking at his dam’s side of the family.

Today I glanced at the pedigree once again. I realized while his grand-sire on one side was AP Indy (pictures in blog further back) I had not noticed that his maternal grand-sire was Hansel. Hansel was a top horse as well-most would say greater than AP. Winning two legs of the Triple Crown (the Preakness and Belmont) and many other big stake races.

Bruno’s great grandsire, Hansel.

It was a little difficult to come to grips with such a prestigous horse with so many famous relatives, rolling in the mud at my little place in Wharton. Talk about a long way from New York. The fun of the OTTBs is their great heritage and lineage.

I texted my friend and sometimes farrier, Sean, who grew up in the thoroughbred world, his grandmother one of the first female managers of a large track in the US. He has also spent time as a jockey. He rode AP Indy. I texted him about Hansel. He replied that having Hansel and AP Indy as your grandfathers is pretty much Thoroughbred royalty. I gave him a little update about how Bruno was doing, that we were starting training and even had done a few jumps

I love dry humor. I received Sean’s text back. He told me Bruno was bred to run, that he was a great horse. I certainly agreed with him. He had ridden the great AP Indy and gave Lauren some tips previously. Then he made me laugh out loud with his final comment. ” I would suggest one thing when you get that horse back in shape and ready for the jumper ring, GO SLOW!! That is one horse that was born for speed and Lauren better never let Bruno take off with her. GO SLOW!”

Absolutely made my day. It is kind of like in the Disney movie, Secretariat, when jockey Ronnie has clearly won the Belmont race and his trainer yells, “Ronnie, don’t fall off”.

I can just see me in the stands watching Bruno and Lauren attack a big jumper course and me yelling., ‘Remember, go slow!”