Fifteen-year-old Kaylin Podmore has a pretty great life, basically everything a teenager living in Lexington, Kentucky could ever dream of. Her parents own one of the most successful Thoroughbred racehorse operations in the country and she has three...
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I feel like we are soaring over the dirt track underneath the almost completely risen early morning April sun. The hooves of the two-year-old Thoroughbred filly I'm riding are thundering against the dirt as we go around the final corner of the mile long track. I know the 1,000-pound filly is fully capable of running a longer stretch, and I want her to as well, but once we cross over the invisible finish line, I will have to pull her up and end her workout.
She carries me over the finish line and I raise myself up to stand in the iron stirrups of the small black leather racing saddle, tugging back on the white leather reins to pull her down from her breeze.
"Yes, great job girl," I say to Faith's Magic while I use the reins to turn her around to bring her back up the track as the sun continues rising over the trees that are surrounding the home track. "Woo, good run girl, slow it down," I add, patting her damp neck.
Faith's Magic has a sorrel chestnut, almost a penny-like coat, a bright copper mane and tail, a white blaze that narrows down her face as well as four white stockings. Her dam is a 2012 mare, A Secret's Faith while she was sired by a 2010 stallion Dylan's Spirit. She has become my favorite horse on the property since she's the first one I have been able to help raise and train into the young promising star of my parents, Derrick and Tammy Podmore, and their Thoroughbred racehorse breeding and training farm, Shadow Ridge Farm.
At the end of June, she will hopefully be racing in her first race, the Bashford Manor Stakes, a stakes race for two-year-old horses that is six furlongs, three-quarters of a mile, with a purse of $100,000.
Churchill Downs runs it annually at the end of June as one of the first graded stakes races for two-year-olds.
Churchill Downs is an old, world-famous Thoroughbred racetrack here in Louisville, Kentucky, just about two hours away from where I live in Lexington, Kentucky. The track is the host for some very important races, like the Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve, the first of three races of the prestigious Triple Crown.
The Triple Crown, a series of three races which can only be run by three-year-olds, includes the $3,000,000 Kentucky Derby, the $1,500,000 Preakness Stakes, that is annually held two weeks later up in Baltimore, Maryland at Pimlico Race Course that is followed by the $1,000,000 Belmont Stakes, at Belmont Park which is farther north up in Elmont, New York, held three weeks after the Preakness, a grueling five weeks for any horse. There have been 13 winners since 1919 when Sir Barton won and 10 more between him and Affirmed in 1978 while American Pharoah and Justify won in 2015 and 2018 respectively.
I split my time here at home, the tracks we travel to for races and school since I'm a fifteen-year-old freshman at Henry Clay High School I attend with my best friends, Aubrey West, who's also fifteen-years-old like me, Grace Barnes and Savannah Davenport who are both sixteen-years-old.
I live here at Shadow Ridge along with my parents and my nineteen-year-old sister, Kimberly who is graduating from Henry Clay next month. The successful racing operation has been passed down for generations, most recently to my parents after my grandpa, Ray, on my dad's side had a heart attack. My grandma, Mary was on him for a little while over it and he finally agreed that it was time to slow down, knowing my parents were more than capable of handling the responsibility. It has been a dream of mine to run the farm one day and since my sister has no interest in racing, I know one day it will be mine.
