Submitted by Alyssa Kelly If you have been following along with Peyton’s updates since the beginning (back in December of 2019), you would know that we should be competing at the 2020 Retired Racehorse Project Makeover. Unfortunately, the 2020 Makeover was cancelled due to COVID-19 and rescheduled for the following year. I wanted to take this time to look back at Peyton’s progress in the last 10 months! We picked up Peyton from Mid-Atlantic Horse Rescue on December 15th, 2019, with very minimal training prior to being adopted. Since he was adopted, our goal was to give Peyton as many…

Submitted by Alyssa Kelly Since the last update, Peyton went to the St. Augustine Pony Club jumper show where he moved up to a higher jump height division of 2’6”. Peyton was amazing at the horse show, achieving champion of the class even though it was the first time he has shown at that height! He handled the atmosphere very well; he self-loaded on the trailer and shipped to the show by himself. Most recently, Peyton attended the Wicomico Hunt Club for their Foxhunting 101 clinic, where Peyton got familiar with the hunting dogs and following in a large group.…

Submitted by Alyssa Kelly This month of training for Peyton included a Friday night horse show under the lights at Granite Springs Stables. Peyton was reserve champion of the jumper division and earned great ribbons in the Adult Equitation division. The last week of July Peyton got a well deserved vacation for a week! Since his vacation Peyton has been participating in dressage and jumping lessons, as well as riding on the trails. The plans for the next month include schooling more cross country courses and hopefully registering for our first horse trails! Peyton and I also registered for a…

Submitted by Alyssa Kelly This month of Peyton’s training started with attending our second cross country schooling at St. Augustine Pony Club. At the end of June, Peyton went to his first horse jumper show at Pairadice Equestrian Farm! We had a great time at the horse show. Peyton behaved perfectly in the large horse show environment. We placed second in the 2’-2’3” Power & Speed class, which included a successful jump off and placed 6th in the Gambler’s Choice class. Through this last month, Peyton and I have been taking weekly dressage lessons, which is teaching us balance and…

Submitted by Alyssa Kelly We are coming up on 6 months of training for Peyton! This month we were able to take a few field trips. Our first adventure was to Fair Hill, Maryland, for some trail riding through the woods, over a few bridges, and through some water. Peyton is a rockstar going to new places including self-loading onto the trailer. We were also able to travel to St. Augustine Pony Club for our first cross country schooling. Peyton was very brave and jumped everything (even the very scary black pipe)! This month we learned that Peyton had some…

With tracks closed to spectators, I asked our ambassadors to find a different way to engage the community. Over the past two months, we've had an assortment of activities: a mock award ceremony held pool-side (and virtually) in Florida, online trivia contests, history discussions, and an auction of thoroughbred memorabilia. Maryland ambassador, Don Walsh, suggested this aftercare auction a few months earlier. When creative alternatives for track meetups were requested, he offered to help run this auction. From our club members we solicited 37 items. Each club member suggested an opening bid and chose what percentage to donate to aftercare…