missbrenna: For the love of horses

Some of my earliest memories are of going to the racetrack in the morning with my dad. Growing up, my brother and I happily spent a lot of time at the Inverness Raceway. It didn't hurt that our house was just down the street. Horses are my dad's passion. He has owned 16 race horses in his lifetime. Because it was his birthday, I used the names of the horses he has owned in a typographical way to create an illustration of a horse. I based my design on samples I found online. The horses names are repeated twice.

West River Dublin was my dad's first horse. Minor Bill is the first one I remember and when he finished racing, he retired to the country where an older gentleman cared for him. Pine Bud Viking was the horse that raced Old Home Week in PEI, won and got set back. We listened on the radio. It was so emotional ... jumping up and down in pure delight only to find out he didn't win because of interference (or something like that). Burnin' Down the House was a fan favourite. People loved his name!

Horses have always been a part of my life. In my neighbourhood the kids "raced" around in duos – one of us the "horse" and the other as a "driver" holding a skipping rope wrapped behind the "horse's" neck and under their shoulders. My brother and I played a horse naming game. We'd go through the entire alphabet, each come up with a horse name for each letter of the alphabet, to which our babysitter would choose which name was the best. We'd keep score. Our poor babysitter! My brother, who is just as passionate about horses as my dad, finally named his own colt in the last year, Constant Hustle. Pretty great name if you ask me! Finally, the bread winner of all my dad's horses, 2-year-old colt, Drachan Hanover. A crew of us made a trip to Toronto in October to watch him race. It was so much fun. That's the thing with harness racing, it's always been fun. I had my first 2 summer jobs at Inverness Raceway. I can read a harness racing program, understand the lingo and now, in the summer, I take my daughter Lucinda to the horse races. At one year old, I was surprised by how much she enjoyed watching the horses run. She truly loves it. But not as much as her 2-year-old cousin Ryder.