In the fall of 2020, Elizabeth McDougald had no plans to adopt a horse when she visited Horse and Hound Rescue Foundation in Guthrie, Okla. She was there to pick up a horse for one of her students, but with so many promising horses at the facility, she decided to look for a project horse for herself. Horse and Hound, an accredited Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance organization, specializes in retraining ex-racehorses and finding them new careers.

With a double major in psychology and political science from the University of Alberta in Canada, Jodie Vella-Gregory pondered a career in criminal psychology, but upon graduation in 2007 she spent a summer in Lexington and everything changed.