"Failed to Menace"

"Failed to Menace" is one of the notations next to Liberty's (who's registered as Red Hot Drawers) name in one of the Thoroughbred racing reports online.  Owners frown upon racehorses that fail to menace.  After winning a relatively unimpressive $10,000, four year old Liberty was given to the woman who owned the barn at which Micah took riding lessons.  She was very nervous under saddle and her early training as a jumper didn't do anything to calm her.  She could and did easily jump 4'+, but in a headlong, panicky way that was sad to watch.  To me, anyway.  We bought her when she was ten and Micah definitely had to rise to the occasion.  Her new mare was kind of crazy.  I've seen runaway horses before, but nothing to compare to one of the times Liberty ran away with Micah.  She bucked a couple of times, unseated Micah, then ran, around and around the ring, in an absolutely out of control gallop like I've never seen before or since.  It took me years to relax when she'd get fired up and I don't know how little Micah dug deep enough to have the courage to get back on day after day.  

Even now, at twenty-two, Liberty needs an very experienced rider.  She's quiet enough, though, that I can relax and marvel at her fluidity and grace of movement.  It's impossible to know if her fear is a result of her racetrack experience or just that she's wired that way, but my bet is with the former.  She's been very sound, though, unlike many horses that come off the track.  

I wish all ex-racehorses could enjoy the retirement that Liberty does thanks to Courtney who owns Cornerstone Sport Horses.

Liberty's sire was named Drop Your Drawers and is mentioned in a New York Times Racing Blog article about Worst Ever Racehorse Names.  My mother would've called that name "tacky."