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Why we moved to Kentucky 7/21/2016 4:27:58 AM
We often hear people say: "You're not from around here, are you?"
"No. We are originally from New Jersey."
"So how did you get here?"
"By car," Virginia will answer.
There is a long story to how we got to Kentucky, as story that starts in Canada in the 1980s. Virginia and I vacationed for an entire month or longer in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Canada. We got into the habit of buying Standardbred race horses and having them trained to race up there on the island. If we felt a horse measured up well, then we transported it to New Jersey where we raced for higher purses and often sold the animal for ten times what we put into it. Eventually we expanded to other states. I think it was something Virginia never thought she'd get into but she did.
At one Ohio sale I bought a horse called Puppet's Final. She and I bonded from the first moment and I knew that if she did not work out as a race horse, she'd be my trail horse. But Puppet's Final never made it. Not to the races or to my trail. My then-trainer disregarded my instructions and let an incompetent assistant train her on the track. Another horse came too close and she reared. When she came down her leg went through the wheel of the adjoining cart. She had to be put down on the track. My trainer lied about who was driving but a partner/friend of mine told me the truth. I recall my conversation with my trainer after I discovered the truth.
"Don, how many horses to you train for me?"
"Thirteen," he answered.
"Wrong!" And I removed all the horses from his stable. But that meant we had to look for some place for the horses and the only land cheap enough for thirteen horses was Kentucky. so we got here by car but also because we needed plenty of land for our stable of race horses. We never raced again but the memories of those moments remain with us.
