MaryAinMI
From AlexBrownRacing
Contents |
Bio
I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. After graduating from the University of Michigan I went to paralegal school in Philadelphia, then worked as an estates, trusts, and tax paralegal (really - it's not as boring as it sounds!) at law firms, first in New York City, then in Chicago. In 2004, I finally and happily made my way back to Michigan. I live out in the country in SW Michigan and I feel blessed every day to be here - surrounded by small farms of cattle and sheep, woods filled with wild turkey and deer, and watching hundreds upon hundreds of sandhill cranes fill the fields and skies next to the barn where I ride. Every day, I feel like I am living a dream.
Horse experience
My grandfather, Charlie, was a farmer in Atalissa, Iowa. Hearing the news about good jobs in the young auto industry in Detroit, he moved his family from Iowa to Michigan. I don't know if my grandfather ever did work for the automobile companies; by the time I met him, he was back living in the country - with two horses: Misty and Coco. They were my first introduction to horses and I adored them.
I took my first (and only, until recently) horseback riding lessons as a freshman in college to satisy my physical education requirement. I think the next time I rode a horse was in Central Park about 5 years later! And I rode horses only a time or two after that. I loved them and I loved riding, but it all seemed too impossible to bring into my life.
Like all of you, I followed the Barbaro story. And it was through all of the success and all of the sorrow of that story, and learning about all of the people involved with him, that I ended up finding my way back to horses. I have been taking riding lessons since March of 2007, co-lease my school horse (a quarterhorse named Marne - the most forgiving creature I have ever met!), and just recently bought my very first horse, Whozoominwho,a 10-year-old thoroughbred off the track at Great Lakes Downs. He came home with me on October 29, 2007. 
FOB activities
As I found my way back to horses, I kept wanting to bring more and more of it into my life. This past racing season (2007) I volunteered to work with CANTER of Michigan and got a first-hand look at the precarious lives of racehorses. I helped Horse Feathers Equine Rescue buy Plum Tricky ("Lily") from the feedlot and RT has been the absolute best about keeping me and others advised of her amazing progress. I have provided support for Columbia Basin Equine Rescue as well as many, many of the other rescues on the ABR site. And I've been working with individuals and rescues to help horses in trouble here in Michigan - a grossly underweight thoroughbred in the Kalamazoo area that we're trying to get to CANTER, a donated Percheron in the Niles area for which we're getting a vet check and, hopefully, a new home, and two skinny horses, overflow from a neighboring county's rescue, that some neighbors are trying to bring back up to weight.
FOB Network
I've grown familiar with the names of the other FOBs that support, and are so incredibly committed to, Horse Feathers - Maggie, Kelly, Ginger, Theresa - I know there are more. I followed Theresa's journey with sweet Willie - and love to read Christine's posts about the breathtaking Micah. I've met and e-mailed Wendy through CANTER and love hearing about Jaguar Hope and Toby. Wendy does great work for the horses. And at the Arlington Park get-together this past August (2007), organized by MJ, it was just too cool to meet so many FOBs!
