By Susan Kayne
For Capital Region Independent Media
“Changing Your Life One Story At A Time” is the registered trademark of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book series. Creative Design is the registered name of a Thoroughbred mare living in Sanctuary at Unbridled. Her barn name, or nickname, is CD. She entered the protective care of Unbridled in December of 2021.
On Feb. 18, 2023, CD celebrated her 18th birthday. She was born in 2005, in Florida. Her sire (father) is Stravinsky, he was a champion in Europe. He is also the sire of Appomattox, who lives just a few stalls away from CD. Express Star is the name of CD’s dam (mother). She was a great racehorse, a stakes winner of over $450,000. She also produced major stakes winners who earned millions of dollars while racing and sold for millions more when in production.
At the time of her birth, and throughout her racing career, CD was owned by Peter Vegso, the publisher who grew the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books into an international empire. To date, the series has sold more than 90 million copies, and includes “Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover’s Soul,” two titles co-authored by Vegso.
CD is a home-bred of Vegso, he purchased her dam, Express Star, in 2000 in California from the estate of the late Marshall Naify, a mogul who made billions in the business of movie theaters.
At the time that Unbridled rescued CD, she was owned by O’Dwyer Livestock, a horse meat trading feedlot in Bowie, Texas. Her real identity had been exchanged for #6027, a barcoded USDA label. Sorted, weighed and tagged for slaughter, CD was cleared for shipment to Mexico. For CD, this meant she would be loaded onto a massive trailer crowded with horses packed in like sardines to travel across the border.
Once in Mexico, she would be unloaded, chased up a concrete chute in which she could not turn around, locked into a concrete box at the end of the chute, and repeatedly stabbed in the back with a puntilla knife until her spinal cord snapped and she collapsed. At that point, while conscious, she’d be hoisted up by her hind leg and bled out by gravity. This is how tens of thousands of American Thoroughbreds and horses of all breeds are killed in Mexico.
When the deadline to load for shipment to slaughter loomed over CD, it wasn’t Vegso or anyone of her many past connections who stepped in to save her life. Rather, it was a patron in Virginia who saw CD fighting for her life amid a sea of panicked horses. They all needed a lifeline.
The arresting raw beauty of CD caught her eye, and she reached out by phone, email and text with a plea to save #6027. Message after message read, “There is something about this mare, please, please help her, she is out of time and in the pen to load.”
The team at Unbridled leapt into action to safeguard the mare. With her freedom purchased and a stall in the sanctuary, #6027 was assured a home to call her own. The Jockey Club and DNA testing confirmed her identity, and her journey in service to the Sport of Kings.
CD carried the colors of Vegso in all of her races. From the age of two until five, she raced 22 times at eight different racetracks, and won four races earning $113,552. In her final start at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 10, 2010, she finished in last place.
Within three months, she was impregnated by Bernardini, who stood for a $60,000 breeding fee at Jonabell Farm in Kentucky. Later that same year, CD was cataloged in the November Breeding Stock Sale at Keeneland. She was sold to Reynolds Bell, Agent, for $210,000.
After leaving the ownership of Vegso, CD changed hands several times. Between 2011 and 2022, the foals produced by CD sold for over $500,000. Three of her foals are currently racing. They have earned over $200,000. Her last five registered foals, including a filly born in spring 2021, are recorded to the breedership of Three Lyons Racing LLC, a Kentucky-based entity owned by Matt, Michelle and Matthew Lyons.
In 2021, after giving birth to a filly by Klimpt, the Lyons family bred CD back to Enticed, with whom she was last mated on June 1, 2021. When she did not stay pregnant, she disappeared until she resurfaced in the O’Dwyer slaughter yards.
This is the real story of Creative Design, and perhaps with a little luck the first chapter in “Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover’s Soul – Part III.”
Susan Kayne operates the horse rescue organization Unbridled Thoroughbred Foundation, on the border of Albany County and Greenville.