Former Racehorse Retires To A Quiet Life Of Painting

Metro was once a racehorse who won more than $300,000 in prize money at tracks like Saratoga and Belmont. These days, having retired with bad knees, Metro spends his days hanging around a stable in Rocky Ridge, Md., eating hay and dabbling in abstract painting.

Ron Krajewski of Gettysburg, Pa., who adopted Metro along with his wife, Wendy, is an artist himself. Ron tells WHP-TV of Harrisburg, Pa., that he noticed how much Metro would bob his head up and down after the horse came off the track. So Ron decided to stick a brush in Metro's mouth and put a canvas mounted on an easel in front of him. Once Metro grasped how to hold the brush, he was all about it. "You can see," Ron tells WHP, "how impatient he gets when he doesn't have a brush." In the three weeks since he's developed his new hobby, Metro has produced a number of paintings that have sold for $40 to $300, with the proceeds going to benefit adopted horses.

[WHP]