The CBC radio producer and programmer from Ottawa, Ontario rediscovered her love of the horse thanks to a fateful trail ride on a vacation in Italy. In turn, a retired racehorse desperately in need of a home, found just that.
“We were on a long trip and my partner John asked me if I wanted to go for a trail ride with this Italian tour guide,” said Hay, 55. “I came back from that ride beaming and convinced I had to get a horse again.”
Indeed, Hay had been immersed in horses and riding from childhood.
Born and raised in Ottawa, Elizabeth Hay began saving her money when she was just eight-years-old to buy her own pony.
“I was a city kid but I wanted to ride horses,” said Hay. “When my Dad found out I was phoning ads in the paper for ponies for sale, he told me I better take riding lessons first.”
Hay took lessons in Quebec at a farm that was home to more than a dozen thoroughbreds and it was then that she became obsessed with the breed.
On her 16th birthday she got her first thoroughbred and she competed in hunter shows until she was 24. It was during her post high school years that she realized that she could not spend as much time with horses as she wanted so she decided to leave horses behind.
Flip ahead a quarter of a century and Hay’s joy from that trail ride was also evident to one of her guests on that trip, Noreen Taylor, from Windfields Farm fame.
“She said I had to get back into riding and offered me a horse she had at the farm that was retired,” said Hay. “But by the time I decided, she had already found it a good home.”
Instead, Hay searched the internet and came across LongRun Thoroughbred Retirement Society, based out of Woodbine. She went on a tour of the group’s foster farms, looked at 27 horses until she came all the way back to the first one she met.
“There was this plain, very tall bay horse, not even my favourite colour. In fact, he was not even on the list Longrun had given me. He had just been given back to LongRun from his original adopter and he was not in great shape. But there was something about him. His look, his eyes, it was just something.”
We’reonarollnow, “Rolo”, was born in Florida and began his career in the fall of 1999 as a two-year-old. He won his maiden the following year by more than nine lengths for $20,000 claiming before an injury led to his retirement.
Rolo adapted quickly to his new home with Hay, who has a hobby farm in Carleton Place near Ottawa.
“It took him a couple of years to get fit and get over some leg issues (the gelding also suffers from lymphangitis) and me two years to get myself back into riding shape.”
Rolo and Hay dabbled in some dressage classes last year and the plan for 2013 is more of the same. “He just glides over the ground, he has a floating stride.”
Rolo has a couple of paddock mates now as Hay has built on her collection. “Derby”, or Whispering River, was bought from Finger Lakes racetrack in New York State to be her jumper. Then came Floyd, or Whiskey Spice, a son of Whiskey Wisdom, who is headed for local hunter/jumper classes this year. “He is ride-able, beautiful and talented. He has it all,” said Hay.
Hay, who does not have children, speaks about her “boys” as part of her family. She does share a special soft spot for Rolo who has, in turn, led to the adoption of other retired racehorses.
“I’ve loved every day I had with that big, brown monster in my life.”
