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.
The recoilless rifle was six feet long and weighed over a hundred pounds. It often required three or four Marines to carry it across the battlefields during the Korean War. Lugging it was dangerous, but it was necessary, because that rifle, which the soldiers nicknamed “reckless,” could fire a 75mm shell thousands of yards with surgical-like precision. It was one of the U.S. Marine Corps’ finest munitions. But the commander of the Recoilless Rifle Platoon, Eric Pedersen, knew there had to be a better way to use it on the battlefield in Korea.
To own a horse is to participate in a dream. Particularly a Thoroughbred racehorse. And when that 2-year-old qualifies for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint on “Future Stars Friday,” your dreams become more exciting!
A job for three summers at the Virginia Racing Commission while Courtney Reid was still a student at James Madison University introduced her to the world of horse racing, something she knew little about other than watching the Kentucky Derby on TV. But Reid, who graduated from college in 2012 with a degree in science and psychology and later received a masters in public health from Liberty University, was so drawn in by horse racing she pursued it as her career of choice.
There is something extra special when a flashy Quarter Horse palomino stands out amid hundreds of world-class Thoroughbreds and their ponies at this year’s Breeders’ Cup World Championships Nov. 1-2 at Del Mar.
