by Kathy Thurber

Fayetteville, NY — Peripheral Vision is one lucky race horse. In 2008 Jason Turner did a story for Hoof Beats entitled, “Blind Ambition” paying tribute to the courage and talent of this Standardbred filly.

Tall and well-built, she was bred to race, but she was born with bilateral juvenile cataracts that rendered her sightless in one eye and nearly blind in the other. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to notice.

Peripheral Vision earned $60,511 in her career.

She was remarkably athletic and poised, outgoing, confident and loveable. Brenda Provost began to work with her as a yearling. Provost brought to the relationship not only the skills of a professional trainer and driver with her own small stable of race horses, but also the knowledge and compassion of a nurse, her other vocation.

The filly brought what Provost recognized as an “innate” racing nature. She bought her and named her Peripheral Vision. Her nickname, however, is Ray because Brenda is a big Ray Charles fan.

Although she never drove Ray in a race, Provost broke her, trained her, and schooled her off the gate. Her primary race drivers were John Beckwith, Greg Bowden and Mike Eaton.

The biggest challenges of training and racing a blind horse, Provost has said, were “all external. Nothing in her. Other people had to get over their fears and biases. And most of them did. She’s nothing if not persuasive! She doesn’t know she can’t see. She just loves to go!”

And “go!” she did, winning $60,511 until her career was cut short by a barn fire at the racecourse where she was stabled.

After more than a year of rest, she fully recovered from the effects of smoke inhalation, and qualified for her first race when Brenda changed her mind.

“I thought she’d done enough. She’s only eight years old and deserves a life that will be easier on her health, but keeps her active.”

Photos courtesy of the author

Peripheral Vision is now at Sunshine Horses in Syracuse, N.Y.

As the Lead/RN Supervisor for a hospital Mental Health & Substance Abuse unit, Provost was finding it hard to give Ray the attention she felt she deserved. So, from her home in Rhode Island, Brenda brought Ray to Sunshine Horses, a Syracuse, N.Y., sanctuary. She had sent two other Standardbreds to Sunshine a few years ago and was pleased with their adoptions.

It was harder to let Ray go, the “baby” she had raised from a yearling.

“Nevertheless,” she said, “when I was ready, I didn’t even think about sending her anywhere else. I know she’ll be loved and well taken care of at Sunshine.”

Founded by Katherine Starr, Sunshine Horses is a 501c3 based at the New York State Fairgrounds and at two farms outside the city. Primarily devoted to Standardbreds, they shelter and retrain horses.

Brenda will support Ray financially until she is adopted. This is a gift to Sunshine as well as to Ray, and it is the ideal model for the relationship of horse, owner and sanctuary as it is a fair sharing of the cost — in both human effort and money — of doing right by these animals.

Ray is going to be fine. One wishes that all horses could be as fortunate in their human friends as Peripheral Vision has been.