Saving Baby: How One Woman's Love for a Racehorse Led to Her Redemption

Jo Anne Normile was not supposed to keep the foal, a beautiful, exuberant Thoroughbred with only a few white hairs on his dark-colored forehead. But she fell in love with the young horse, who happened to be born on her farm. The breeder finally said she could have the colt, whom she nicknamed Baby – but only if she raced him. The bond between woman and horse was strong, and Normile would have kept Baby safe in the pasture at her home had she not made this promise. Then again, on television, horseracing had always come across as a glamorous mix of mint juleps and celebrity, set against a backdrop of equine grace and speed. It was a vision that appealed to Jo Anne. She didn’t know yet about the indifference and corruption that runs rampant through the world of horse racing—not until an accident on a poorly maintained track resulted in tragedy for Baby. That’s when everything changed for Jo Anne. She transformed her misgivings into the pursuit of an entirely different vision and founded the most successful horse rescue in the country, saving more horses than anyone else ever has.　

As she learned all too well, the Sport of Kings, as it is known, washes over one with its beauty, its pageantry. It’s a kind of heady ecstasy that transfixes. But once Normile found out the truth—that for every Seabiscuit, there are tens of thousands of racehorses whose lives end in pain and despair—she did a complete about-face, even pulling from the racecourse a promising granddaughter of Secretariat poised to win no small amount of money. Saving Baby, a memoir, tells her life-changing story of love, regret, and redemption.