I’m forwarding this information today for several reasons.
1) The hat really caught my eye and I thought it was beautiful.
2) The idea of a Derby Hat Auction was novel to me and I liked it! Any creative way to benefit the horses is fine by me!
3) A Derby Hat Auction that helps an earnest TB retirement home like OLD FRIENDS is worth spreading the word…
4) NOOR, the great TB who is referenced with this particular Derby Hat, had been buried in my home town – on a beautiful spread – in an unmarked grave for many years… I think the news that NOOR was exhumed and reburied with dignity at Old Friends is very good.
NOOR AND GRASS VALLEY
As you will read in the report below, NOOR was retired long ago at a gorgeous TB farm out here in my home town of Grass Valley. I’ve written about the Loma Rica Ranch and NOOR previously in this post.
Anyway, the Loma Rica Ranch fell into disrepair and was sold to a developer who is, sadly to me, developing the once glorious estate.
Luckily, several TB fans were up in arms that NOOR’s unmarked grave would be built over and forgotten. So, headed by Charlotte Farmer who created a ‘Friends of NOOR’ group worked tirelessly to earn the rights to find his grave, exhume him and bring him home to the Old Friends Hall of Fame Cemetery, where he belongs.
DERBY HAT AUCTION – HAT INSPIRED BY NOOR
So attached is an inspired reporting of an inspired story (NOOR being buried, finally, with honor), and an inspired way to fund raise for the horses of OLD FRIENDS.
Please note that the auction for this particular hat is closed. But, there will be another hat presented on December 1 so check back to the Old Friends website linked here. The name of these benefit auctions is: “Hats Off to the Horses: The Road to the Derby”
A Unique Online Derby Hat Auction Benefiting Old Friends”
Here you go! If you’d like to visit the website, click here.
Great Auction idea - inspired by NOOR
Description of the Auction
Noor's story... Click image to go to NOOR's FB page
More on Noor.
Noor's final story. Click here to read about Charlotte's journey.
Hat inspiration...
More on the hat
I cannot imagine making this. So cool.
Nice!
More angles
Always second to SeaBiscuit no more.
Rules
To see the hats from the first year’s series check out:
Black Tie Affair – Commentator – Bull Inthe Heather and Little Silver Charm –
Will’s Way Academy Award – Sunshine Forever
To see the hats from the second year’s series check out:
Gulch – Tinner’s Way – Creator – Marquetry – Ogygian
Copyright
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Shame on you thinking this was a great idea. Publishing it as a great idea? Noor was a great horse representing a grand ideal we as Americans say we all strive for. His grave was desecrated from a place that supported his/this ideal. Especially in this day and age and during the dismantling of the horse industry where is the stop line you people have! Is this just something more to be kicked down the road, or just plain acceptance of the empending end of a real industry. Ironically this industry has become such a hodge podge of players without a foundation of professional education, left to be the next generation of teachers, that it has become its own worst enemy. Sad ? More like pathetic. Loma Rica Ranch like Noor represents what use to be the best about our society, dont rely on this letter, look for yourself into the history of this story, at least then you will know what you are kicking.
It is still to me very sad that Seabiscuit was similarly buried in an unmarked grave on the ranch where he spent his final years. I understand his owners required this because they were afraid of (gruesome) souvenir hunters. If anyone in that family knows the whereabouts of Seabiscuit’s final resting place they aren’t saying. I wish they would follow the lead of Noor’s angels. You know, racing in the past was as much about the horses and about the people personalities and about entertainment and escapism from the harsh reality of daily life (esp. back in Depression-era days) as it was about the money. Now, whether it’s trainers, owners or gamblers, sadly the romance is pretty much gone and it’s all and only about the dollars.