Hillcroft Acres Riding Stable Memories

17/09/2025

09/09/2025

a major scientific discovery in Siberia, where researchers uncovered the frozen remains of a young prehistoric horse, now known as the “Lena horse.” This foal is believed to be about 42,000 years old, dating back to the Ice Age, and it was preserved in the permafrost—a layer of permanently frozen ground that acts like a natural freezer.

Exceptional Preservation

What makes this discovery extraordinary is not only the foal’s overall condition but also the presence of liquid blood and urine inside its body. Normally, in fossils and ancient remains, soft tissues and fluids dry up or decay completely. For an animal that lived tens of thousands of years ago to still contain liquid blood is an incredibly rare phenomenon. The permafrost acted as a protective environment, stopping bacteria and natural decomposition from breaking down the tissues. This left the foal’s body intact, almost as if it had been frozen shortly after death and kept undisturbed for millennia.

Scientific Importance

Because of this unique preservation, scientists now have a rare window into Ice Age life. Studying the foal’s body could reveal details about how prehistoric horses looked, grew, and adapted to their cold environment. The discovery is especially valuable to paleobiology, the study of ancient organisms, because researchers can examine not just the bones but also preserved soft tissue and fluids, which usually do not survive.

DNA and Cloning Potential

The most exciting part for many scientists is the potential genetic information locked inside the foal’s preserved blood. Since blood cells can carry DNA, analyzing this material could allow researchers to sequence the horse’s genetic code. With advanced cloning and genetic engineering techniques, it might even become possible to bring back extinct horse species or at least create close relatives. This is similar to efforts being made with woolly mammoths and other Ice Age animals found in Siberian permafrost.

Symbol of the Ice Age

The Lena horse is not just another fossil. It is essentially a time capsule, preserving a piece of life from an era that vanished tens of thousands of years ago. It represents how powerful natural preservation can be and gives modern science tools to study, recreate, and understand ancient ecosystems. By learning from discoveries like this, scientists may one day be able to reconstruct lost species and gain insights into how animals adapted to extreme climates—knowledge that could even help with today’s challenges in biodiversity and climate change.

16/08/2025

The 42,000-year-old filly that can walk again

In the frozen lands of Siberia, under layers of ancient permafrost, a small foal was hidden for 42,000 years.
When scientists discovered it, they found something extraordinary – not just bones, but a nearly perfectly preserved body.

Her skin was intact.
Her dark brown mane is still soft
Your internal organs untouched by time.
And inside her little heart- liquid blood.

🔹 Species: An extinct type of Lena horse
🔹 Age: Only 1-2 weeks old when he died
🔹 Condition: So immaculate, it looked like she had just fallen asleep

The foal probably drowned in a muddy hollow, instantly sealed by ice. What followed was silence - and preservation. For more than four ice ages.

Now scientists are trying to do the unthinkable:
Extract viable cells.
And bring that old bloodline back.

The goal? A clone.
A living echo of a species lost in time.

It's not science fiction anymore - it's science, standing on the edge of memory.

And maybe soon, something that once walked the Ice Age
gonna walk again 🐎❄️

12/08/2025

Followed and loved this c**ts life story. Born too early, but had strength courage and bravery to live and teach. Leaving behind a legacy and that is a Warrior Rockstar. Rip Seven love forever.

“Baby Seven”
February 15,2024 - August 11,2025

Yesterday, we had to say goodbye to Seven sooner than we expected.

While we knew that we didn’t have years or even many months left with our sweet boy, we had hoped for more sunny days of watching him graze in the pasture. We had hoped for more mornings being greeted by his sweet, cheerful whinny. We had hoped for more evenings feeding him his favorite banana treats. We had just hoped for more.

This hot week proved hard for even healthy horses, and Seven started to show signs of colic, which led us to make the difficult but quick decision that he needed to be humanely euthanized.

If we had been able to see the full picture from the start, we might have made different choices, but life isn’t lived with the benefit of hindsight. We took each day as it came, guided by the experts who cared for him alongside us.

We have loved Seven fiercely from the moment he was found…standing…whinnying out in the middle of the cold, muddy pasture that he was born in at 286 days gestation. Anyone who dealt with Seven on a personal level knows the fight and LIFE that he exuded every single day. He WANTED life. He FOUGHT for life. He was a joy, and though he wasn’t able to be a “normal horse”, no one can say they didn’t fight for him to have that chance.
Regardless of what was learned from Seven’s journey, he will be paving the way for future equine veterinarians for years to come.
This year, the “Seven Scholarship” was created to give $7000 to 7 3rd year Equine Vet students and the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine. That’s $49,000 directly from Seven’s legacy that goes directly back into veterinary medicine every year.

We have also started an endowment to ensure that this pledge continues, which I will leave a link below to donate towards if you wish.
Regardless of what anyone on the outside thinks, we just wanted Seven to have a happy life. We wanted for him what he desperately kept fighting for. We, as the ones who saw his life start under a microscope, wanted to make sure we gave him ever tool in our power to have the chance to thrive.
With that being said, life and decisions you make along the way don’t always work out the way you plan. With the curveballs, you still have to continue making the decisions you feel are right, which we did for Seven 100% of the time.

Thank you to Dr Christine and everyone at Tennessee Equine Hospital who saved Seven’s life and spent countless hours with him at the beginning of his life. Thank you for making his final moments peaceful and easy as well.
Thank you to Dr Ursini and everyone at UTCVM who loved and cared for Seven for so long, and truly gave your all into his wellbeing.
Thank you to everyone who loved Seven. We will miss him so much. Truly.

Please be kind, and please keep the Running Springs Family who loved & saw Seven daily in your prayers.

Comments have been turned off so this post can remain a peaceful space to honor Seven’s memory.🧡

11/08/2025

There are many legends in horse racing. But one stands alone—a mare so dominant, so untouchable, that no horse ever beat her.
Her name was Kincsem.
And she never lost.
There’s no record of her race times because, and this is important, she raced in the 1870’s. They didn’t exactly have stopwatches back then. There’s not much info floating around because she raced mostly in her native Hungary, and most of the original documents regarding her have just never been translated into English.
What is certain, though, is that this “lanky, pot-bellied, and sway-backed” mare did indeed win all 54 of her career races. There is ample documentation of that, because while she was racing, she was a bona fide celebrity all over Europe. When she made her only excursion to England, for the 1878 Goodwood Cup, the media covered every detail of her arrival, appearance, eating habits, anything they could find to print about her. She was incredibly popular, and her deeds were told and re-told by hundreds of thousands of adoring fans.
54 races may seem like a lot, but note that at least six (and maybe more) were walkovers, because her reputation frightened away any competition. She won 10 races as a juvenile, 17 at three, 15 at four, and 12 at five. She won three consecutive runnings of the Hungarian Autumn Oaks and three runnings of the Grosser Preis von Baden (a race still run today). She was, simply put, just that damn good..
When she died, all of Hungary officially went into mourning for three days, with flags at half-mast and newspaper articles bordered in black. They named parks, hotels, a horse track, even a golf resort after her. They built her a statue in Budapest, The bloodlines of her five foals carried across the world, she has descendants in nearly every racing country.
And, of course, if Kincsem never existed, then who the hell does this skeleton belong to? It’s on display in the Hungarian Agricultural Museum:

11/08/2025

They called her a freight train in silk — and she never, ever stopped rolling. Black Caviar wasn’t just a champion. She was an unbeaten storm, a symphony of speed, and the pride of a nation. 🇦🇺 Born in Australia in 2006, the daughter of Bel Esprit and Helsinge, she carried not just bloodlines — she carried expectation. And she met it, every single time. 25 races. 25 wins. Zero defeats. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. She wasn’t flashy — she was flawless. She didn’t just beat her rivals — she left them gasping in her wake. Each stride was poetry written at full gallop. 🌍 In 2012, she crossed the world to run at Royal Ascot. It was her 22nd race, against Europe’s best, and her body wasn’t at full strength. But she dug in, powered through the final meters, and won — by the skin of a whisker. It wasn’t dominance. It was pure heart. That day, she showed something more valuable than perfection. She showed courage. 🎖️ Black Caviar was named World Champion Sprinter three years in a row. Her legacy? Untouched. Her mystique? Untamed. She retired undefeated — a rarity in racing, a myth come to life. And today, when Australians talk about the greats, they speak her name with pride. Because in a sport of heartbreaks and hard luck, she was the dream that never broke. Black Caviar wasn’t just the best sprinter. She was a promise kept. A queen who never fell. And a legend who made perfection look effortless.

10/08/2025

Secretariat ♥️♥️
how on that early morning in March of 1973 he had materialized out of the quickening blue darkness in the upper stretch at Belmont Park, his ears pinned back, running as fast as horses run; how he had lost the Wood Memorial and won the Derby, and how he had been bothered by a pigeon feather at Pimlico on the eve of the Preakness (at the end of this tale I would pluck the delicate mashed feather out of my wallet, like a picture of my kids, to pass around the car); how on the morning of the Belmont Stakes he had burst from the barn like a stud horse going to the breeding shed and had walked around the outdoor ring on his hind legs, pawing at the sky; how he had once grabbed my notebook and refused to give it back, and how he had seized a rake in his teeth and begun raking the shed; and, finally, I told about that magical, unforgettable instant, frozen now in time, when he had turned for home, appearing out of a dark drizzle at Woodbine, near Toronto, in the last race of his career, twelve in front and steam puffing from his nostrils as from a factory whistle, bounding like some mythical beast out of Greek lore.
Bill Nack.

09/08/2025

Long before Secretariat lit the world on fire, there was a c**t who carried a collapsing dream on his back and saved it.
His name was Riva Ridge, and in the silence before the storm, he was the one holding Meadow Stable together.
Riva wasn’t loud. He didn’t dazzle with flair or demand the cameras. He was a soft-eyed bay with a heart full of duty , the kind of horse who didn’t ask for attention, only trust.
In 1972, while Meadow teetered on the edge of financial ruin, Riva Ridge showed up at Churchill Downs and gave the Chenery family the win that kept the doors open: the Kentucky Derby.
Two weeks later, he was undone by the rain at the Preakness. He came back and crushed the Belmont , a champion already, but without the crown.
And while the world clapped politely, it didn’t stand.
That would come a year later.
Then came the thunder.
Secretariat.
He wasn’t just fast , he was mythical. Bigger. Redder. Wilder. When Secretariat moved, it was like the track bent beneath him. He took the headlines, the hearts, the history books and ran away with them.
But here’s what they forget:
In the barn, before the crowds arrived and the cameras rolled, Secretariat sometimes spooked. Jittered. Danced on nerves.
It was Riva Ridge who calmed him.
He was the steady drumbeat beneath Big Red’s symphony.
They were never rivals. They were balance. Fire and earth.
One exploded into legend.
The other made sure there was a stable left to explode from.
Without Riva Ridge, there is no Secretariat.
No Belmont by 31.
No immortal thunder.
Riva’s greatness was quieter but just as essential.
He wasn’t the storm.
He was the reason the storm had a sky to break open.