Hillcroft Acres Riding Stable Memories

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Hillcroft Acres Riding Stable Memories Hillcroft Acres Riding Academy Stable As you drove onto S. McIntyre St you would see the main house and then an entrance into the parking lot . It was HUGE!!!

There loomed before you stood the long , red and white indoor arena barn. Especially daunting to us children who began riding there at a young age. To the right, down below, was the school horse pasture with a pond. Just above that was a square dirt arena. Beyond and out into the pasture was the 12-15 cross country jumps. The in and out cabin, yellow barrel, blue box, brick wall, small bush jump,

large brush jump, small pole jumps and always obstacles for the beginner to the advanced. Back towards the barns there was the broodmare barn, with stalls and turn outs and if you walked East the big green gate stood where you could enter the big pasture and visit the small herd of pasture horses.

16/08/2025

The 42,000-year-old filly that can walk again

In the frozen lands of Siberia, under layers of ancient permafrost, a small foal was hidden for 42,000 years.
When scientists discovered it, they found something extraordinary – not just bones, but a nearly perfectly preserved body.

Her skin was intact.
Her dark brown mane is still soft
Your internal organs untouched by time.
And inside her little heart- liquid blood.

🔹 Species: An extinct type of Lena horse
🔹 Age: Only 1-2 weeks old when he died
🔹 Condition: So immaculate, it looked like she had just fallen asleep

The foal probably drowned in a muddy hollow, instantly sealed by ice. What followed was silence - and preservation. For more than four ice ages.

Now scientists are trying to do the unthinkable:
Extract viable cells.
And bring that old bloodline back.

The goal? A clone.
A living echo of a species lost in time.

It's not science fiction anymore - it's science, standing on the edge of memory.

And maybe soon, something that once walked the Ice Age
gonna walk again 🐎❄️

Followed and loved this c**ts life story.  Born too early, but had strength courage and bravery to live and teach.  Leav...
12/08/2025

Followed and loved this c**ts life story. Born too early, but had strength courage and bravery to live and teach. Leaving behind a legacy and that is a Warrior Rockstar. Rip Seven love forever.

“Baby Seven”
February 15,2024 - August 11,2025

Yesterday, we had to say goodbye to Seven sooner than we expected.

While we knew that we didn’t have years or even many months left with our sweet boy, we had hoped for more sunny days of watching him graze in the pasture. We had hoped for more mornings being greeted by his sweet, cheerful whinny. We had hoped for more evenings feeding him his favorite banana treats. We had just hoped for more.

This hot week proved hard for even healthy horses, and Seven started to show signs of colic, which led us to make the difficult but quick decision that he needed to be humanely euthanized.

If we had been able to see the full picture from the start, we might have made different choices, but life isn’t lived with the benefit of hindsight. We took each day as it came, guided by the experts who cared for him alongside us.

We have loved Seven fiercely from the moment he was found…standing…whinnying out in the middle of the cold, muddy pasture that he was born in at 286 days gestation. Anyone who dealt with Seven on a personal level knows the fight and LIFE that he exuded every single day. He WANTED life. He FOUGHT for life. He was a joy, and though he wasn’t able to be a “normal horse”, no one can say they didn’t fight for him to have that chance.
Regardless of what was learned from Seven’s journey, he will be paving the way for future equine veterinarians for years to come.
This year, the “Seven Scholarship” was created to give $7000 to 7 3rd year Equine Vet students and the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine. That’s $49,000 directly from Seven’s legacy that goes directly back into veterinary medicine every year.

We have also started an endowment to ensure that this pledge continues, which I will leave a link below to donate towards if you wish.
Regardless of what anyone on the outside thinks, we just wanted Seven to have a happy life. We wanted for him what he desperately kept fighting for. We, as the ones who saw his life start under a microscope, wanted to make sure we gave him ever tool in our power to have the chance to thrive.
With that being said, life and decisions you make along the way don’t always work out the way you plan. With the curveballs, you still have to continue making the decisions you feel are right, which we did for Seven 100% of the time.

Thank you to Dr Christine and everyone at Tennessee Equine Hospital who saved Seven’s life and spent countless hours with him at the beginning of his life. Thank you for making his final moments peaceful and easy as well.
Thank you to Dr Ursini and everyone at UTCVM who loved and cared for Seven for so long, and truly gave your all into his wellbeing.
Thank you to everyone who loved Seven. We will miss him so much. Truly.

Please be kind, and please keep the Running Springs Family who loved & saw Seven daily in your prayers.

Comments have been turned off so this post can remain a peaceful space to honor Seven’s memory.🧡

11/08/2025

There are many legends in horse racing. But one stands alone—a mare so dominant, so untouchable, that no horse ever beat her.
Her name was Kincsem.
And she never lost.
There’s no record of her race times because, and this is important, she raced in the 1870’s. They didn’t exactly have stopwatches back then. There’s not much info floating around because she raced mostly in her native Hungary, and most of the original documents regarding her have just never been translated into English.
What is certain, though, is that this “lanky, pot-bellied, and sway-backed” mare did indeed win all 54 of her career races. There is ample documentation of that, because while she was racing, she was a bona fide celebrity all over Europe. When she made her only excursion to England, for the 1878 Goodwood Cup, the media covered every detail of her arrival, appearance, eating habits, anything they could find to print about her. She was incredibly popular, and her deeds were told and re-told by hundreds of thousands of adoring fans.
54 races may seem like a lot, but note that at least six (and maybe more) were walkovers, because her reputation frightened away any competition. She won 10 races as a juvenile, 17 at three, 15 at four, and 12 at five. She won three consecutive runnings of the Hungarian Autumn Oaks and three runnings of the Grosser Preis von Baden (a race still run today). She was, simply put, just that damn good..
When she died, all of Hungary officially went into mourning for three days, with flags at half-mast and newspaper articles bordered in black. They named parks, hotels, a horse track, even a golf resort after her. They built her a statue in Budapest, The bloodlines of her five foals carried across the world, she has descendants in nearly every racing country.
And, of course, if Kincsem never existed, then who the hell does this skeleton belong to? It’s on display in the Hungarian Agricultural Museum:

11/08/2025

They called her a freight train in silk — and she never, ever stopped rolling. Black Caviar wasn’t just a champion. She was an unbeaten storm, a symphony of speed, and the pride of a nation. 🇦🇺 Born in Australia in 2006, the daughter of Bel Esprit and Helsinge, she carried not just bloodlines — she carried expectation. And she met it, every single time. 25 races. 25 wins. Zero defeats. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. She wasn’t flashy — she was flawless. She didn’t just beat her rivals — she left them gasping in her wake. Each stride was poetry written at full gallop. 🌍 In 2012, she crossed the world to run at Royal Ascot. It was her 22nd race, against Europe’s best, and her body wasn’t at full strength. But she dug in, powered through the final meters, and won — by the skin of a whisker. It wasn’t dominance. It was pure heart. That day, she showed something more valuable than perfection. She showed courage. 🎖️ Black Caviar was named World Champion Sprinter three years in a row. Her legacy? Untouched. Her mystique? Untamed. She retired undefeated — a rarity in racing, a myth come to life. And today, when Australians talk about the greats, they speak her name with pride. Because in a sport of heartbreaks and hard luck, she was the dream that never broke. Black Caviar wasn’t just the best sprinter. She was a promise kept. A queen who never fell. And a legend who made perfection look effortless.



10/08/2025

Secretariat ♥️♥️
how on that early morning in March of 1973 he had materialized out of the quickening blue darkness in the upper stretch at Belmont Park, his ears pinned back, running as fast as horses run; how he had lost the Wood Memorial and won the Derby, and how he had been bothered by a pigeon feather at Pimlico on the eve of the Preakness (at the end of this tale I would pluck the delicate mashed feather out of my wallet, like a picture of my kids, to pass around the car); how on the morning of the Belmont Stakes he had burst from the barn like a stud horse going to the breeding shed and had walked around the outdoor ring on his hind legs, pawing at the sky; how he had once grabbed my notebook and refused to give it back, and how he had seized a rake in his teeth and begun raking the shed; and, finally, I told about that magical, unforgettable instant, frozen now in time, when he had turned for home, appearing out of a dark drizzle at Woodbine, near Toronto, in the last race of his career, twelve in front and steam puffing from his nostrils as from a factory whistle, bounding like some mythical beast out of Greek lore.
Bill Nack.

09/08/2025

Long before Secretariat lit the world on fire, there was a c**t who carried a collapsing dream on his back and saved it.
His name was Riva Ridge, and in the silence before the storm, he was the one holding Meadow Stable together.
Riva wasn’t loud. He didn’t dazzle with flair or demand the cameras. He was a soft-eyed bay with a heart full of duty , the kind of horse who didn’t ask for attention, only trust.
In 1972, while Meadow teetered on the edge of financial ruin, Riva Ridge showed up at Churchill Downs and gave the Chenery family the win that kept the doors open: the Kentucky Derby.
Two weeks later, he was undone by the rain at the Preakness. He came back and crushed the Belmont , a champion already, but without the crown.
And while the world clapped politely, it didn’t stand.
That would come a year later.
Then came the thunder.
Secretariat.
He wasn’t just fast , he was mythical. Bigger. Redder. Wilder. When Secretariat moved, it was like the track bent beneath him. He took the headlines, the hearts, the history books and ran away with them.
But here’s what they forget:
In the barn, before the crowds arrived and the cameras rolled, Secretariat sometimes spooked. Jittered. Danced on nerves.
It was Riva Ridge who calmed him.
He was the steady drumbeat beneath Big Red’s symphony.
They were never rivals. They were balance. Fire and earth.
One exploded into legend.
The other made sure there was a stable left to explode from.
Without Riva Ridge, there is no Secretariat.
No Belmont by 31.
No immortal thunder.
Riva’s greatness was quieter but just as essential.
He wasn’t the storm.
He was the reason the storm had a sky to break open.

08/08/2025

They bought him for a bargain $57,000 as a yearling, dismissing him as "just another big red horse." But Curlin didn’t race for pedigree—he raced with the relentless drive of a freight train, his massive frame and unyielding will turning him into the highest-earning North American horse in history. Dubai, March 2008. The World Cup was meant to humble him. Racing on foreign soil against defending champion Invasor, Curlin broke awkwardly, his 1,200-pound body struggling to find rhythm. Jockey Robby Albarado steadied him, then asked at the turn. What followed was pure power—Curlin’s strides, each spanning 28 feet, churning the Tapeta surface like a thresher. He surged past Well Armed in the final furlong, winning by 7 lengths and claiming his throne as the world’s best. The Relentless: - 2007 Preakness Stakes: Overcame traffic to storm past Street Sense in the stretch - 2007 Breeders’ Cup Classic: Crushed older horses by daylight at Monmouth Park - 2008 Stephen Foster Handicap: Carried 128 pounds to victory in track-record time The Irony: His lone "failure"? A narrow third in the Kentucky Derby, a race that haunted him. Yet he retired with $10.5 million earned, his blue-collar grit rewriting the record books. At stud, he sired champions like Stellar Wind and Exaggerator, passing on his trademark late kick. But none matched his sheer physicality—17 hands tall with a back broad enough to saddle two jockeys. When he died in 2020, they buried him at Lane’s End Farm beneath an oak grove. Yet his true monument gallops on every time a longshot c**t digs deep in the stretch—proof that heart isn’t bred in bluebloods, but forged in fire. Curlin didn’t just run races. He rewrote the definition of a working-class king.



















07/08/2025

"The Dreamkeeper Mare"
A Story of Motherhood and Moonlight in Native Spirit

Long ago, beneath a sky woven with stars and the soft silver light of Grandmother Moon, there lived a mare known as Whispering Dawn. She was no ordinary horse—her mane carried feathers blessed by the wind, her coat was kissed with sacred symbols, and dreamcatchers followed wherever her hooves touched the earth.

She wandered the plains with her young foal, Little Feather, a curious soul with eyes like river stones. Every night, they would stop beneath the moon and rest under the protection of dreamcatchers hung on branches by the elders, to catch the nightmares and let only dreams flow through.

“Why do we rest beneath these circles, Mother?” asked Little Feather one night.

The mare lowered her head and replied,
“Because dreams are the songs of our ancestors. And when the moon shines, they dance through the web, whispering stories to our hearts. I stay with you so you never forget who you are.”

That night, as Little Feather closed his eyes, he dreamt of running with the herds of the Sky, where horses galloped among clouds and the wind spoke in ancient tongue.

Whispering Dawn stayed awake, her eyes watching the moon, her spirit wrapped around her child like a soft blanket of starlight. She knew that one day, her foal would grow and run his own path—but for now, under the protection of the moon and the sacred web, he was safe in her love.

And so, every night beneath the moon, the Dreamkeeper Mare would stand guard—not just for her foal, but for every child whose dreams still needed guiding.

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