Virginia Hunt Country Tour - Dynaformer Colt

Wow...this was totally unexpected.

The Virginia Hunt Country horse tour is held on Saturday and Sunday of each Memorial Day weekend, with the proceeds from tickets to help local charities. Hubby Paul and I had not done it in about 10 years but decided to pick a few places to see out of the dozen or so open for visitors this year.

At the top of our list was the Firestones' Newstead Farm because I was bound and determined to see Genuine Risk, now 30, who was the first filly in 65 years to win the Kentucky Derby in 1980. She's in excellent shape for her age, by the way.

We decided before returning to the car to walk over to another barn. The irony of this is I stopped for a while to ponder the idea, as I have torn cartilage in one of my knees and was trying to minimize walking.

As we walked from one stall to the next, we noted a colt and commented he looked a lot like . . . you guessed it, Barbaro. When we looked at the lineage posted, we found out he was an unnamed colt out of Dynaformer, Barbaro's sire!!!!!!!!! I didn't recognize or don't remember the name of the dam, and it was too dark in his stall to take a photo without a flash. We didn't want to startle him.

On the way out, we mentioned to a couple of staff members, "Oh, we see you have a Dynaformer colt." None of them recognized the connection to Barbaro.
By the way, both of us wore our blue Barbaro shirts and received perhaps a dozen comments about them. In each case, we were able to talk about horse slaughter and the need for legislation. I also handed out maybe half a dozen cards.

This event runs through Sunday, 5/27. Tickets are $25 each and are most easily purchased at Trinity Episcopal Church in Upperville, VA. While they are also available at each tour stop, you have to know what the stops are in advance to buy tickets there. So it's easier just to drive to the church on Route 50 to get them.