ICWHATYOURLOOKINAT

Call me IC.

I was born on bluegrass so green it hummed — twenty-five hundred acres of white-fenced Kentucky paradise at Airdrie Stud, where the morning mist rose off the paddocks and the air tasted of clover. My father was Gulch, Champion Sprinter, whose stud fee commanded $60,000 and whose name opened every door in Thoroughbred country. You can see him in me if you look: the dark almond eyes, the curves of a body built for speed, the steadiness that never left me no matter what came next.

At eighteen months I was led through an auction ring. The gavel fell at $23,000. I never saw Kentucky again.

They sent me west to Emerald Downs, where I learned to break from the starting gate with my heart hammering and run until my lungs burned and the dirt stung my eyes. Seventy-two races over six years. Seven wins, nine seconds, sixteen thirds. They called me a war horse — the industry's word for Thoroughbreds who survive fifty starts or more. Every victory I posted traveled back across the country and settled into my father's record as a "progeny win," a statistic that helped justify his price tag to the next mare owner in line.

When my legs couldn't hold the rhythm anymore, I was sold. Then sold again. Polo pony — they shaved my mane to the roots for speed. When my damaged tendons couldn't take the torque, I was sold to the Amish. They nailed heavy iron road shoes to my feet and harnessed me to a buggy on the hard pavement of Lancaster County, every step amplifying injuries no one had treated. When I resisted that life — and I did resist — they took me to auction and sold me by the pound.

I was eleven years old, tethered to a hitching post in a kill pen in Pennsylvania, a USDA meat tag where my name used to be. I searched the faces that passed — handlers, brokers, strangers with clipboards — for anyone I recognized. A groom from the backside at Emerald Downs. A polo rider. Anyone. No one I had ever known in my life was coming for me. Around me, horses were loaded onto trailers and driven away in a direction I understood without being told. I stood still and kept my eyes open and waited, because waiting was all I had left.

And somehow — through grace I cannot explain — I was seen. Someone I had never met chose me. I was untied from that post and led in the other direction, away from the trucks, into a trailer that carried me to a quiet barn where the air smelled like clean hay and the hands that touched me were gentle. Thirty days of quarantine. Soft voices. A farrier who pulled those terrible iron shoes from my feet and let me stand on the ground as myself for the first time in longer than I could remember.

For a few years after my recovery, I lived in a barn full of horse-crazy kids who stuffed their pockets with carrots and brushed my coat until it shined. My job was to carry young riders through their first real partnership with a horse — teaching them balance, trust, and the quiet language that exists between two beings when both are paying attention. It was the easiest, most joyful work of my life.

In time, I returned to Unbridled, where the riding got lighter, and then lighter still, until one day there was no saddle at all — just me, standing in the pasture with Lucy and some of the older girls, doing absolutely nothing. And it turns out nothing is something, when you've spent your whole life being asked for everything.

I am seen here. Not for what I can do or what I'm worth per pound, but for who I am — a mare in her unbridled life, finally.

My name means I see what you're looking at. I hope you see me, too.

💠💠💠

IC's father, Gulch, lived like a king until the age of thirty-two. His stud fees generated over $60,000,000. His offspring earned over $90,000,000. His sons, daughters, and mares carrying his unborn foals sold through public auction for hundreds of millions more. When he died, it made headlines. Not one dollar of that fortune followed his daughter from Kentucky to the kill pen. The industry that created IC had no plan for what happened when she stopped being profitable. Unbridled did. IC is a 2006 Thoroughbred mare by Gulch, rescued from slaughter in November 2017. To provide a lifeline to  horses like IC, visit Unbridled Sanctuary.

​​Registered Name: ICWHATYOURLOOKINGAT

Born in Kentucky on March 23, 2006

Sired by Gulch Out of Nephele by Deputy Commander