drug addiction

For as long as he can remember, Nick Brawner has always had someone in his corner. It began with his father--his best friend and the man who taught him the true meaning of empathy. Years later, it was Josh Bryan, who helped him through his early stages of recovery and showed him how a profound peace can by found by working with horses. Just over a year ago, Brawner lost both men within a span of a few weeks. It was a period of staggering grief, but by coming out...

Brandon Pennington learned from an early age that stability was never guaranteed. Moving between the homes of parents and grandparents who were almost all battling addiction, he lived in a world where the adults meant to protect him were often lost to their own struggles. Some of his earliest memories were of staring through the crack in the bathroom door, watching to make sure a family member under the influence wasn't going to cause themselves further harm. In those moments he made a promise to himself: whatever his future held,...

A good barber knows how to create conversation. After years of standing over his chair trimming hair and chatting with clients, John Daugherty has always prided himself on his ability to talk to just about anybody. "It didn't matter if it was a doctor, the mayor, or the homeless guy around the corner, I could talk to everyone," he said. So when Daugherty found himself in a prison staring at the adolescent faces of his two sons at a loss for words, his inability to find the right thing to...

Robert Osbourne was spending a few weeks helping out at the Stable Recovery house at Taylor Made, taking some time to reset and perhaps figure out some goals for his life, when one afternoon the program's director Christian Countzler walked into the living room looking as white as a ghost. This was a little over a year ago, just as the calendar was turning over to 2023, and at the time Stable Recovery was relying on funding from the Kentucky Career Center to keep the fledgling project up and running....

Stable Recovery is a rehabilitation program in Lexington, Kentucky that provides a safe living environment and a peer-driven, therapeutic community for men in the early stages of recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. Along with going to 12-step meetings and support groups, residents attend the School of Horsemanship at Taylor Made Farm to learn a new vocation in the Thoroughbred industry. The School of Horsemanship is a project that was created by Taylor Made two years ago and has since seen over a 100 men go through the program. Many...

Kyle Berryman has a lot to look forward to as he opens a new chapter in 2023. He recently celebrated six months of sobriety and, two weeks ago, his boss Will Walden asked him if he would be interested in running the stable's shedrow. "It's just a title, but it's pretty cool," Berryman said after wrapping up a busy morning at Turfway Park. "I only have maybe five months of experience working with horses right now, so I'm still brand new and still learning a lot." He may shrug off...

One year ago, Taylor Made Farm launched the Taylor Made School of Horsemanship-a program created to work with people recovering from substance abuse and teach them a new vocation in the Thoroughbred business. The pilot year was such a grand success that plans are now in the works for how the program can grow from here. The School of Horsemanship was designed by the farm's Vice President Frank Taylor, who now oversees the project along with the program's coordinator Josh Bryan. "Frank started this because he wanted to help people...