By Becky Adler Fagan

It was a chilly February day and the small, bay thoroughbred stood on the crossties with a sweet expression.  He was thin, with not much muscle and he sported a deep brown winter coat with rubbed spots on his shoulders from his blankets, but his face is what drew me in.  I had responded to an ad on a website and decided that he would be worth looking at.  After some recent changes in my life, I thought that it might be a fun challenge to buy an off-the-track thoroughbred to retrain and sell and Grady was the first horse I was trying.

**************************************************************************

I had spent years on the horse show scene, first competing as a junior rider, then as an amateur and finally as a professional showing mostly hunters for 13 years.  I had always loved competing but was feeling a little burned out and in need of a change.  I left my current position with a successful show stable thinking I was taking a break from horses, but fate intervened and took me in another direction.

I would still ride and help take care of my own two horses at my parents’ farm.  My mom took care of Toby & Chauncey and I was looking forward to spending more time there, especially since Chauncey had been going through a mysterious illness for quite a while.  I had been on the road so much that I hadn’t been able to see them a lot and for that I felt guilty.  I was especially grateful for this new found time because Chauncey succumbed to his illness about two weeks after I left my job.  This left Toby all alone and we knew we would have to decide pretty soon what our next step was going to be.

My mom, Judy, with Toby (left) and Chauncey (right) in 1998

My mom was getting older and the barn work was getting more difficult for her so it was really up to her to decide whether she still wanted to have horses at home.  With winter coming, we decided to look for a barn with an indoor ring and board Toby for a few months while my mom gave some thought to the future.

As the winter rolled on, my mom came to the conclusion that she still wanted horses at home.  She wasn’t quite ready to give that up.  The next question was what to do next.  I had picked up some freelance riding over the last few months and some of the horses were thoroughbreds. I realized I hadn’t ridden many thoroughbreds over the past few years and was really enjoying their intelligence and work ethic.  I had grown up riding a thoroughbred and my mom’s first horse was a thoroughbred so I had the idea that it would be fun to buy one to train and resell.  My mom liked that idea and the search began.

We hadn’t “shopped” for a horse in years and now with the availability of the internet, it was easy to find lots of possibilities.  I browsed through many websites, replied to a number of ads, made some phone calls.  Some people never got back to me, some did but the horse didn’t end up being quite what I was looking for.  Then one day I saw the ad for Grady.  He was a good looking little horse that was advertised as being good for a junior or amateur (with more miles) and very level headed.  After speaking with one of the trainers involved in his sale, we decided to go take a look.

**************************************************************************

When we arrived at Grady’s barn on that cold February morning, Katie was there to greet us and to ride him so we could see him go.  Looking through his winter coat and blanket rubs we could tell he was very handsome.  He had a beautiful eye even though it sometimes lacked expression.

Katie tacked him up and brought him into the attached indoor ring.  She told us that he hadn’t been ridden very much lately and that he had his heavy winter shoes on so he wouldn’t move as nicely as he normally would.  He went around the ring fine, not in a very hunter like way and a little tense but he did what he was asked and was very businesslike.  Katie put him through his paces and then jumped a few little jumps.  I was pleased with what I had seen so far so I decided it was time to get on and see how he felt.

When I first got on, I wanted to see how he responded to some simple exercises at the walk.  He listened well and seemed to be trying to figure me out.  We continued on with our ride, working at the walk, trot and canter.  He was definitely quick and not very broke but I liked the fact that even when we were going faster than I wanted, he felt safe and sane.  He hadn’t been off the track for that long so he was still in racehorse mode.  He had been in training for a few months, doing flatwork and learning to jump, but he still had a lot to learn.  That was a job for whoever bought him.

After we finished working on the flat, I decided to jump a few small jumps.  I only trotted them since his canter was not really developed yet.  His natural balance seemed good, but he was lacking the ability to adjust his stride so cantering jumps would probably have been difficult and wasn’t really necessary at this point.  He did everything I asked so we decided to end on a good note.

I cooled him out and we brought him back into the barn.  Katie put him in his stall to eat some hay and we talked a little more about him.  Then, right as my mom and I were about to leave, we both turned and looked toward Grady in his stall.  Right at that moment, Grady slowly lifted his head from his hay and looked at us.  The expressionless eye was now soft and relaxed and he held our gaze for a few seconds.  I knew my mom saw what I did and we looked at each other and smiled.

We went back a couple of weeks later to try Grady again and it went well.  He hadn’t done too much in the time since we’d seen him last but he was pretty much the same as the first time.  We really liked him but he was still the only horse we had tried.  We decided to hold off and go see some more horses for comparison.  We told Katie that we did like him a lot but we weren’t quite ready to move forward and we would be in touch.  If it was meant to be, he would still be available when and if we decided he was the one.

Over the next few weeks, we did go to see a few more horses but Grady continued to be the frontrunner.  Finally, I called Katie to find out if Grady was still available and was happy to hear that he was.  We went to try him one more time.  Patti, his usual rider who wasn’t able to be there for our first two visits, was there to greet us this time.  Grady seemed to have lost a bit of weight since we saw him last but we weren’t too concerned.

Grady in March 2007

Patti had been doing more with him and with winter slowly coming to a close, we were able to ride in the outdoor ring.  There was a nice course of jumps set up and Grady felt more relaxed so I did more jumping than we had the times before.  He did great, really listening between the jumps and even giving me a few lead changes.

Watch a short video clip of Grady jumping

I felt like we were ready to make our decision, but there was one glitch…..I had to be away for the next two weeks and was leaving the next day.  We couldn’t do anything until I got back so they agreed to take a deposit on him and keep him for the 2 weeks until I returned and we were able to set up the pre-purchase exam.

The exam was scheduled for two days after I got back from my trip.  Patti would trailer him up to our farm and wait while the exam took place.  Based on the results, we would either write a check and keep Grady, or he would go back with Patti.

Everything went smoothly and the vet went back to the office to develop the x-rays.  We invited Patti inside and sat down around the kitchen table with some hot chocolate and waited.  About an hour later, the phone rang.  The x-rays looked ok although there was one little wing fracture in Grady’s left front hoof.  This was probably an old racing injury and the vet didn’t anticipate it being a problem.  My mom & I looked at each other, both of us knowing what the other was thinking.  A few minutes later, Grady was ours and Patti headed back to New Jersey with an empty trailer.