OTTB Spotlight: Glorious Alliance

A dozen years ago, life-long hunter/jumper rider Karen Graninger was looking to make her first horse purchase. When she came about a beautiful 12-year old Thoroughbred lesson mare who was tied up with not one, not two, but three lead ropes inside a stall--she felt she needed to take a closer look.

“I’m going to kill you,” the mare seemed to say to Graninger, now affectionately known as “K”, or “the redhead” to the over three thousand followers of her horse Glorious Alliance’s Twitter account.

The Tweeting Horse

Twelve years and 177,000 tweets later, the world knows more about this cantankerous at best/world dominatingly-evil at worst former racehorse who admittedly “puts the MARE in nightmare”.

Horses that tweet come and go in the Twitterverse--often in the form of accounts featuring precocious two year old colts with Kentucky Derby dreams. Few have much staying power after the novelty of “hey, that’s supposed to be a horse tweeting these words” wears off.

But @GloriousAllianc has persevered because of her wit, her daily stories of life as a retired racehorse, and her fourth (or is it fifth) career as bartender of a mythical and magical place known as the “Pasture Bar” where she dispenses life advice as well as drinks to faux unicorns, non-indigenous animals, and even the elusive (to humans) Bigfoot.

Glory is a very musical horse, and one of her favorite bands is Toad the Wet Sprocket.

It was an honor to the horse (and apparently the band) when their official Twitter account tweeted that they “love all of their fans, horses and humans alike” in response to her gushing about their latest album.

The half-dozen or so Twitter followers and their families who have come to meet “Glory” at the ranch in Coachella, California have been amazed at meeting the mare face to face.

Others plan on stopping in to visit Glory and K prior to this year’s Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita.

The Mare Writes a Book

Graninger helped pen the book Bedtime Stories from the Pasture by Miss Glorious Alliance in 2014, sharing some of the real and fantastical happenings at the ranch where Glory no longer resides--she has since moved to a smaller pasture.

“People have said to me, ‘she acts the way you write her’,” says Graninger.

“But the truth is, I actually write her the way she is,” she explained.

If Glorious Alliance were to have a human voice, the redhead says she would sound “like Bette Davis for sure--throaty--maybe a little Lauren Bacall”.

The book features the numerous other horses, polo players, a couple of married snakes, dogs, barn cats, and various other visitors to the pasture that is only short drive from where Glory now spends her days.

Glorious Alliance: the racehorse

Glory’s first “career” was that of a racehorse.

Piloted by National Racing Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Delahoussaye in her two year old debut on August 12, 1994 at Del Mar, Glorious Alliance would finish fifth in a field of ten for trainer Neil French at 8-to-1 odds. The winner of that race was the even-money favorite Sophisticatedbagel.

She garnered her first and only win in a six furlong sprint at Golden Gate the following May--as a 20-to-1 longshot under jockey Chris Hummel in a $8,500 claiming race.

When asked if she had seen replays of Glory racing, Graninger said, “yes, and I can see what she was thinking when she was running. I don’t think she actually ‘got” what he was supposed to be doing.”

Glorious Alliance’s racing career came to an abrupt halt in the fall of 1995. She was retired due to a tendon injury, making her twelfth and final career start at Hastings Racecourse for trainer Dwight Gormley.

Kindred Spirits

But eventually, Glory and K would meet, and even though the fiery mare seemed hell-bent on ending Karen (sad note: in August of 2010, Glory nearly kept her early promise by kicking Graninger in the head, causing some serious long-lasting effects) as she had warned when they first met in that stall, the two have become kindred spirits.

Although Glory was Karen’s first horse that she outright owned, she had been a “catch” rider for years--sometimes riding as many as eight horses a day. The redhead learned that each horse had what she calls their own “horse-inality”.

It was perplexing to Graninger that when someone asked her to ride their horse, they really knew little about the horse that they owned.

“I’d ask, ‘What is your horse like?,” said Graninger.

“And they would answer, ‘well, he’s brown…” offering little else as to the behavior of the horse they were entrusting her to ride.

But K and Glory have gotten to know each other all too well over the last twelve years.

“She knows my different walks, my different eye gestures--I can even ‘pin’ my ears back at her,” Graninger explained.

On two occasions (once recently) Karen has been overcome by heat stroke. Both times, she was with Glory when she was stricken.

The second time, Glory appeared to be warning Karen that it was about to happen again--her memory of the first episode seemingly etched into her equine mind.

“No, Glory, I’m OK, I have about another fifteen minutes,” Graninger told her mare.

Then, suddenly, she was out of it. The horse was right, being completely in tune with her human companion.

The mare nuzzled her beloved redhead who came to seeing “beautiful, colorful flowers” that weren’t there.

Glory’s Resume

After starting as a racehorse, then a lesson horse at a ranch, Karen got Glory into the show jumping arena.

“She’s a consummate professional, says Graninger, who rode the mare in some of the best circuits in California and Canada.

Her biggest exception would be the mare’s first attempt at dressage--she came out to the ring, saw no gates or obstacles to be challenged, and did a 180 degree turn about as if to say, “I’m out! Nothing to do here.”

Karen had to turn the nightMARE around, and Glory did her best.

Most horses have had a successful life having racehorse, lesson horse, hunter/jumper, dressage horse, trail horse on their resumes, but the one Glorious Alliance is most well-known for is her role as alpha mare of her previous ranch, where she was the resident bartender at the Pasture Bar.

When Graninger opened Glory’s Twitter account in May of 2012, it was intended for the hunter/jumper world, but when she added the words “nightMARE”, and “Thoroughbred” to the Twitter bio, horse racing fans started to take notice.

Graninger had been to the races at Saratoga as a youngster, but wasn’t a big fan of horse racing.

That has changed since a large portion of Glory’s followers are horse racing aficionados.

“It was amazing, yet unintentional--but the enthusiasm of the racing community for the horse has been outstanding,” Graninger said.

“In most other disciplines, it’s about the human rider, but in horse racing circles, the horse always comes first--it’s about the horse,” she explained.

The redhead is now a fan of horse racing, and her favorite horse she’s ever seen race is Beholder.

“First, she’s a big mare, but secondly, I can see her movements easily--she goes from vertical to horizontal very quickly, and I can see her spatial skills are very in-tune,” she added.

The Darkest Hour

In December of 2014, Glorious Alliance was stricken with a severe case of colic (whether it was gas or impaction colic is unknown). The mare was unable to stay standing, and to those in the barn, the prognosis seemed bleak.

In the middle of the night, it appeared that the mare had taken a turn for the worse, and Karen felt she had to do the unthinkable--tell Glory’s faithful followers that the mare’s chances of survival was up to the equine “spirit army” that was explained in the book.

With the help of “Auntie Viv”, and a few gentle wraps with a lead rope, Glory was able to stand--a good sign.

But the mare toppled again, and all seemed lost.

“I could see the fire go from her eyes, and I thought we were losing her,” said Graninger.

She had someone open Glory’s Twitter account to explain what was happening.

“I couldn’t deny her followers the option of thinking good thoughts, or praying for her,” she added.

Then, seconds after the tweets explaining Glory’s dire situation hit the Internet, her account was flooded with well-wishes, and prayers.

And, almost as if in a movie, Karen looked her mare in the weary eyes, and yelled, “Get the (expletive deleted) up!”

And the mare did.

The vet arrived shortly after, she was intubated, given medication, and within a few hours of being treated, was back to her old cantankerous self, as if nothing had happened.

OTTB: Thoroughbred Life Care

Graninger stresses that anyone who is to take on an OTTB be mindful of total life care.

“Older Thoroughbreds require more care--more hoof care, more dental care, more vet visits,” she says.

She encourages new OTTB owners to quickly find their horse something to do after they retire from the track--whether it’s eventing, hunter/jumper, polo, trail riding, or as a companion horse.

She says that Thoroughbreds make excellent horses in all of those realms, because they are very attentive, and have already proven they can handle one discipline--racing.

As for Glory, her life on the smaller ranch is a bit different than the one in the book.

“She’s easier to catch now!,” exclaims Graninger.

She has less of a cast of characters to subject to her sovereign rule. But even the old mare isn’t truly retired.

“She may do one more (Thoroughbred) show in the future, if they’ll (show organizers) let her,” Graninger explains.

Imagine the crowd on hand when the 24 year old alpha nightMARE enters the ring for old time’s sake. Photo Credit to Karen Graninger

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