More than a vet

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From August 2019 Issue

Written by Linda Dougherty

Through a long career, Hogan fills vital role from New Jersey base

Nestled in the heart of Cream Ridge, a small town that, with its green fields and white fencing, bears more of a resemblance to Kentucky than its central New Jersey location, is Fair Winds Farm, a longtime Standardbred nursery.
Down the long, shady lane, past broodmares and their new foals, is the Hogan Equine veterinary practice, in what used to be the farm’s breeding shed. There’s a bicycle outside the office door, on which Dr. Patty Hogan rides to work many days when the weather is nice. She’s fortunate to be able to live so close to her practice, which she designed and decorated, taking the breeding shed and transforming it into a state-of-the-art equine medical facility for surgery and recovery.

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Locals Only: West Virginia-bred Runnin'toluvya nabs big score on home track

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From June 2019 Issue

Written by Tom LaMarra

Despite eight consecutive victories and 11 overall, all at his home track, the West Virginia-bred gelding Runnin’toluyva had something to prove in the most lucrative race of the year at Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races.
A little more than six months after a smooth front-running score in the $300,000 West Virginia Breeders Classic for state-bred runners, Runnin’toluvya was asked to take on the challenge of the $1 million Charles Town Classic, a Grade 2 event that has attracted its share of big-name invaders with previous wins at the top level of United States racing.

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Strong Fabric

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From April 2019 Issue

Written by Joe Clancy

West Virginia sire Fiber Sonde continues to climb

At Keeneland November in 2007, the sales catalog listed 31 horses as stallion prospects. You don’t know 30 of them. Eleven didn’t sell. One brought $130,000. Another just $1,000.
The one you do know, West Virginia phenom Fiber Sonde, sold for $8,000. Looking to expand the stallion roster at their Beau Ridge Farm near Charles Town, John McKee and Cyndy O’Bannon made the successful bid – and unknowingly changed their lives.

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July 2019: Seeing the end, and the means

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From July 2019 Issue

Written by Joe Clancy

“. . . the end is not in question. It’s the means – the dreadful uncertainty of the means.”
John Steinbeck was writing about race relations in America in 1962 when he finished a paragraph in Travels with Charley, in Search of America with that. It’s a punch of a sentence, or two sentences I guess. A hard, quick punch. Bap. And then it’s gone. You want to read it again, even though you know you’ll get punched.

Steinbeck had just witnessed organized protests of a single black child attending a public school in New Orleans. He’d talked to people, picked up hitchhikers, taken the pulse of a community even without really trying to do so. While many in the country could not, he could see the end – though you could argue that nothing has truly ended, only changed.
The author’s description made me think of racing. When it comes to reform, the end is not in question. Just the means, and they are full of uncertainty.

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