Our Mims Retirement Haven is proud to announce the arrival of Love Locket to our organization. She officially stepped foot onto the farm on March 29, 2024. She is a beautiful bay multiple stakes-winning mare who just turned 21 years old on Feb. 13, 2024. She is sired by Thunder Gulch (Gulch) and out of the Silver Ghost mare, Love Lock. In 11 races, she earned just under $200,000 for her then-owner Michael Tabor, who had horses that won the Whitney, the Cigar Mile, and many other stakes races. In three years on the track she won a couple of black type stakes races: the Irish Sonnet Stakes, the Blue Hen Stakes and the Serena’s Song Stakes.
After leaving the racetrack, Love Locket was sold in foal to Ghostzapper to the award-winning country music artist Toby Keith for the musician’s Dream Walkin’ Farms in Pauls Valley, Okla. Love Locket has had 12 foals by some amazing sires: Johannesburg (JoJo Gypsy’s sire), Dixie Union, First Samurai, Ice Box (twice), Cactus Ridge, Flower Alley, Successful Appeal, Midshipman, Ghostzapper, and Mshawish. Her last foal listed was a filly born in 2020. Her Ghostzapper filly, Ghost Locket, was bred and raced for Keith's Dream Walkin’ Farms and also became a multiple stakes winner. All of her foals went on to race.
OMRH Board Member, Sidna Trimmell began a friendship with Toby in 2018, and over the years they kept in touch and discussed Thoroughbred racing, breeding and aftercare, and the dream of beginning a therapeutic riding program for veterans. It was then that Toby agreed to donate a mare to Our Mims Retirement Haven when there was an opening. Unfortunately, that opening, and Toby’s death were within days of each other. Trimmell reached out recently, and the Dream Walkin’ Farms manager Lynden Branch and Keith's family made good on that years-long promise and graciously donated Love Locket to OMRH.
Once her intake is complete, she will be turned out to join the rest of the Ladies of the Haven where she will roll in the bluegrass and relish in the love and adoration of her new fans – and live the life we wish all horses could live.
We are grateful for all of our supporters and donors for helping us keep Jeanne’s dream alive.
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