Anita Motion

After spending many years helping to teach incarcerated inmates life skills and equine care, a lot of 10 retired Thoroughbreds boarded a van July 23 bound for Pasture of Point Lookout, a Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania-based sanctuary farm founded by world-renowned artist Jamie Wyeth in memory of his late wife Phyllis. On the anniversary of her passing Mr. Wyeth turned to longtime friends, Graham and Anita Motion of Herringswell Stables. "To honor my late wife, Phyllis Mills Wyeth and her Belmont Stakes winner Union Rags, I am transforming our farm into...

Every trainer deals with difficult horses, and sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't. There was a time when Graham Motion didn't know whether Mean Mary (Scat Daddy) would fulfill her potential. Owned and bred by Alex Campbell Jr., she was that tough. "You had to have your best rider on her," Motion said.  "You had to have her on the pony or she'd pull some antics going to the track. Nothing that was unmanageable, but something you always had to be ready for. She was just very tough."...

It was only this past Tuesday that the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) invited fans to submit photos or videos to social media of their Off-Track Thoroughbreds (OTTBs) for inclusion in a series of video montages to be played during the upcoming Eclipse Awards, but the enthusiastic response already has overwhelmed those charged with weaving this tribute together. "It's been terrific," said Keith Chamblin, the NTRA's chief operating officer, who said that the NTRA offices have been inundated with emails from OTTB owners, alongside the slew of messages posted on...