horse therapy

His name is Immortal Wink (Gimmeawink) and after a career that spanned nine years and 142 races, most of them in Puerto Rico, he was done. He was 10 and had suffered through the kind of wear and tear that is typical with horses who run so often, last so long and wind up at the bottom tier of the sport. He would never go on to a second career, at least one that is typical for a retired Thoroughbred. He just wouldn't be able to do it. But there...

For an animal blessed with the seemingly incompatible traits of bone-china fragility, jiu-jitsu flight instincts, and combustion engine top-speeds, the horse is understandably yoked to its vision for avoiding harm's way. Because of that, sight is arguably the sense most artificially manipulated in the racehorse to "enhance" performance. Blinkers. Cheekpieces. Hoods to fool the recalcitrant into the starting gate. Mesh goggles for the fractious. Nor does the loss of an eye render a Thoroughbred's evolutionary purpose obsolete. Far from it. One-eyed wonders like Hard Not to Love--recent winner of the...