Hip, Progressive Racehorses & Their Twitter Accounts

I’m on that “tweetering” edge (bad joke… had to do it) of adults who grew up just barely on the outskirts of social media, unlike our Gen Y’ers who have never known life without it. And so, even as a marketing professional (I’ll reluctantly admit), I had to be dragged in by my teeth to the underworld of Twitter. Who has time for this, I thought.

Apparently most of the world. And it is a powerful engine that allows people into personal spaces not otherwise available.

@MileyCyrus? Uncool. @MLauer? Yawn. @KingJames (aka Lebron James)? Think I just got an eye twitch. @IAmLavaMan? Now we’re talking. Remember Lava Man? The multi-millionaire bay racehorse gelding who stole everyone’s hearts on the track and now is stealing hearts as a very proud track pony/stable prankster. Yep, he tweets. A lot. Guess how many followers he has? 2,537 as of this morning. Why not? I’m happy to leave the Brangelina story on the shelf. But give me a pic and tweet of Lava Man in the morning, and my day will be better because of it.

Quiz? Who was Lava Man’s famous young stable mate he mentored to stardom? The underdog Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another… or @Ill_HaveAnother, with 6,680 followers who keep track of him in his post-racing career at stud in Japan.

Moving on to international sensations. The great Frankel, who lived up to the stardom of his namesake Bobby Frankel, boasts a following of 8,057 followers @Frankel_Horse. And of course, the most popular racehorse on Facebook? Our sweetheart, Black Caviar, with a whopping 36,723 followers @blackcaviar2006. She is feeling the love.

But this week is all about Breeders’ Cup. Did you know there are several top 2013 contenders with active twitter accounts? Be sure to look them up. They’re a hoot.

Filly/Mare Turf: @the_fugue

Turf Sprint: @TheCaracortado (who likes skittles)

Juvenile: @DanceWithFate

Juvenile Turf: @DanceWithFate (cross entered)

Sprint: @TrinnibergColt

Turf: @the_fugue (cross entered)

Dirt Mile: @TheGoldencents

Mile: @WiseDan_

         @ToronadoHorse

Classic: @PaynterZayat (“The Miracle Horse”)

              @MuchoMachoMan

             @PalaceMalice

             @WillTakeCharge

One last twitter tip. The week before a big race, twitter is an unbeatable place to see cool, candid shots of horses, landscape, back barns, track and people. It gives you a real-time, behind-the-scenes look at the final prep of these horses and their personalities as they head into their big races. A few of my favorite twitter accounts to follow that offer fabulous pics are photographer Barbara Livingston (@DRFLivingston), announcer and exercise rider Zoe Cadman (@zoecadman), and Blood-Horse correspondent Claire Novak (@ClaireNovak).

And of course, yours truly will be onsite this Thursday through Sunday @turfsoul, tweeting pics and thoughts that will convey the energy and excitement that is the Breeders’ Cup.

Start your tweeting for best of Breeders’ Cup 2013!

My Zenyatta Story

Zenyatta and Blame head to head at the finish of the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Classic

 

I watched my first life-changing horse race on television in 2009. I went to my first horse race in 2010. I attended my first Breeders Cup in 2012. Interspersed were many other races and racing experiences, but these three pivotal events were my own personal launchpad to falling in love with racing, and like many, were centered around one breathtaking horse: Zenyatta.

During the 2012 Breeders Cup, we attended a party dedicated to Zenyatta primarily so I could hand deliver a personal letter to her owners, Jerry and Ann Moss. While I’m sure she doesn’t remember the encounter, Ann immediately saw my glistening eyes as I gave her the sealed envelope, and she returned it with a genuine hug, tearful eyes that answered, and an intentional “Is your name in the letter? I want to make sure it is.” I nodded yes and smiled, as she was whisked away to the next person, no doubt expressing their personal gratitude for this horse as well. So, in honor of that moment, here is the letter I gave Ann:

November 1, 2012

Dear Ann & Jerry,

I’ve looked forward to the opportunity to personally thank you for putting Zenyatta in a position to touch so many people, and to tell you how she impacted my life.

I’ll just jump right in and hope it doesn’t scare you off. I’d moved to Santa Ynez, CA from Denver, CO to be closer to the man who would shortly become my husband. We met in the Arabian horse business, both marketing professionals, thriving and successful and optimistic about our future. We married a year later in 2009, and it is almost laughable how things turned upside down. The Arabian horse business imploded with the economy. Bob’s 20+ year business collapsed. We received a foreclosure notice on our honeymoon. My contract project managing the fundraising and public relations efforts for a $10 million Arabian Horse Galleries in Lexington, KY was nearing its end. And then his 13-year-old daughter was dropped off at our doorstep by her mother, and *poof *I was a full-time step-mom to a 14 year old named Justice at the age of 32. Justice was very difficult, suffering from attachment disorder, and only getting worse, eventually ending up in a residential treatment center. It was an overwhelming time, quite different from how I pictured my life. I remember feeling like I was teetering on the brink of depression all the time, with no reprieve in sight. My husband felt helpless.

One day I was flipping through channels, and amazingly stumbled upon the 2009 BC Classic live on ESPN. I didn’t follow racing, but I tuned into any sort of equine sport. I watched her race, and it took my breath away. I started following her. Casual reading turned into some form of an obsession. She was my “Happy Place”, a place of rest from the chaos where I could get recharged for the first time in a long time. And she was a fighter. Like me. She helped me keep going, keep trying. As time went by, there was no value I could put on her in my life.

Over the next year, we started frequenting her races in California… and it led to Bob and I becoming quite infatuated with racing in general. It certainly all started with Zenyatta.

The first time I met Zenyatta (we watched her final work at HP before the 2010 BC Classic, and then went to the back barns to meet her) was something I will never forget, and will take to my grave. She exuded a tremendous ‘aura’, and I just felt at that moment that God was all over her. She was one of His special creatures. And it dawned on me that on some level I think she knew it, and she had a job to do for Him. And this was why I found so much peace from her. And this was why she affected so many people in their own hurting places the way she did.

Her 2010 Breeders Cup race was at first crushing, but then it evolved in my heart and mind to be perhaps the greatest lesson she’d given all of us yet. Zenyatta’s only defeat on paper was a blessing in disguise because it ended up sending the message that life isn’t about winning, nor is it about perfection– unattainable to most people. Rather it’s about the way in which you run your race, no matter what is presented to you. And, in hindsight, it always had been.

Our lives have graduated past the worst of those horrid couple of years. But I’ve always kept those lessons I learned through her close to me. And I can’t thank you enough for allowing her to be used in that way.

Thanks for hearing my story, and thanks for sharing Zenyatta with us. I’m forever grateful.

Warmly,

Evie Sweeney

Santa Ynez, CA

Welcome to turfsoul.

It’s appropriate to begin this blog with the story of one horse who inspired me as a stranger to racing, encouraged me in hard times, and ultimately allured me to the sport through her endearing, ethereal qualities. Of course, I’m referring to the great Zenyatta.

Through her, I started to see the wonderous, soulful qualities all around the racetrack and in the horses who called it home. I found it particularly fascinating because I’ve been around great horses all my life—both personally and professionally—but something about racing seemed to deliver soul-stirring stories and encounters on a more frequent basis than in other horse settings I’d experienced. I have yet to put my finger on it, but I think it has something to do with the fact that racing at its core allows horses to do something in their innate nature: Run. Ever wonder why almost all the great horse stories people know are racehorse stories? There is something about watching and celebrating a horse in flight that touches our soul. Maybe that freedom allows the horses to more effectively communicate those soulful elements to us that they emit. Whatever it is, those who have felt it know it forever. I’ve felt a tug to create a place wholly dedicated to this feeling. I call it “turfsoul.”

“It should tell…

“It should tell us something important all by itself that animals have this way of constantly confronting us with ultimate questions– about truth and falsehood, guilt and innocence, God and sanctity and the soul– forcing us to define ourselves and our relationships to the world.”
— Michael F. Jacobson, “Dominion”