Thoroughbred Quotes & Sayings

The natural impulses of every thoroughbred include his sense of honor; his love of fair play and courage; his dislike of pretense and of cheapness. — Emily Post

My family's been in show business since the 1700s. I traced them. I'm bred to this. Like a racehorse. A thoroughbred. Look at my parents, my God. But it was my curiosity that made me do this. Because you could also say: "Look at Frank Sinatra Jr." It's not like a natural thing that happens. You gotta work. — Liza Minnelli

You are your own master, you make your own future. Therefore discipline yourself as a horse-dealer trains a thoroughbred — Gautama Buddha

We are born into this time and must bravely follow the path to the destined end. There is no other way. Our duty is to hold on to the lost position, without hope, without rescue, like that Roman soldier whose bones were found in front of a door in Pompeii, who, during the eruption of Vesuvius, died at his post because they forgot to relieve him. That is greatness. That is what it means to be a thoroughbred. The honorable end is the one thing that can not be taken from a man. — Oswald Spengler

1. I'm brilliant
2. I'm charming
3. I'm hung like a thoroughbred
4. I've stopped all philandering
5. I'm highly skilled, as you've learned the other night.
P.S. Stop staring at my hands. I know what you want me to with them. — K.A. Tucker

Horseracing and ranch horses are two different animals. You're getting race horses out and running and running them. It can be really problematic. A thoroughbred's very delicate. — Dennis Quaid

Just the sight of him sent pleasure shooting through me. I might be reluctant to get emotionally involved with anyone right now, but I was still a wolf, and still capable of admiring a good-looking man. Kade was that, and a whole lot more. He was a horseshifter, and his coloring was that of a bay
a rich, mahogany bay that came complete with jet black hair and wicked, velvet-brown eyes. And he was built like a thoroughbred, with broad shoulders, slim hips, and those wonderfully long legs. Legs that could hold a girl just in the right place as she drove him deeper and harder inside.
excert from Darkest Kiss — Keri Arthur

I raised you to be a thoroughbred. When thoroughbreds run, they wear blinders to keep their eyes focused straight ahead with no distractions, no other horses. They hear the crowd, but they don't listen. They just run their own race. That's what you have to do. Don't listen to anyone comparing you to me or to anyone else. You just run your own race. — Marlo Thomas

I raise quarter horses. Mine are mostly thoroughbred cross horses, a little bigger horses than some people like. I sell them or use them on the ranch. A lot of them go to the rodeo arena and some of them go to racetracks. — Wilford Brimley

All was still: dark crawlers with their frozen treads, bulldozers motionless as boulders, backhoes with bent necks and sleeping hearts and shove-mouth jaws pillowed on gravel. And tractors. An antique Case Model DEX in signature flambeau red, last year's twenty-foot-tall New Holland TV140 gleaming like a groomed thoroughbred, Minneapolis-Molines and John Deeres and Steigers and Fords and still, among them all, nothing quite like the Deutz. — Josh Weil

After the falling out with my father, I worked on a couple of ranches - thoroughbred layup farms, actually - out toward Chino, California. That was fine for a little while, but I wanted to get out completely, and twenty miles away wasn't far enough. — Sam Shepard

To see a thoroughbred racehorse up close is to see a supreme example of a living piece of art.-Serena Jade — Serena Jade

A Thoroughbred racehorse is one of God's most impressive engines. Tipping the scales at up to 1,450 pounds, he can sustain speeds of forty miles per hour. Equipped with reflexes much faster than those of the most quick-wired man, he swoops over as much as twenty-eight feet of earth in a single stride, and corners on a dime. His body is a paradox of mass and lightness, crafted to slip through air with the ease of an arrow. His mind is impressed with a single command: run. He pursues speed with superlative courage, pushing beyond defeat, beyond exhaustion, sometimes beyond the structural limits of bone and sinew. In flight, he is nature's ultimate wedding of form and purpose. — Laura Hillenbrand

What is courage? Let me tell you what I think it is. An indefinable quality that makes a man put out that extra something, when it seems there is nothing else to give. I dare you to be better than you are. I dare you to be a thoroughbred. — Herb Brooks

The 2006 event logo combines the twin spires of Churchill Downs, one of the great signature elements in sports, with the greatest international day of Thoroughbred racing. We look forward to displaying the logo widely throughout the commonwealth of Kentucky, and to our international outlets. — Damon Thayer

When you call upon a Thoroughbred, he gives you all the speed, strength of heart and sinew in him. When you call on a jackass, he kicks. — Patricia Neal

Some kind of pace may be got out of the eeriest jade by the near prospect of oats; but the thoroughbred has the spur in his blood. — James Russell Lowell

No matter how much you disagree with your kin, if you are a thoroughbred you will not discuss their shortcomings with the neighbors. — Tom Thomson

Our tax code encourages people to raise thoroughbred horses, not children. — Patricia Schroeder

I never heerd ... nor read of nor see in picters, any angel in tights and gaiters ... but ... he's a reg'lar thoroughbred angel for all that. — Charles Dickens

It was among the knowledgeable others that one hoped to be talked about and admired. It was not impossible - the world of squadrons is small. The years would bow to you; you would be remembered, your name like a thoroughbred's, a horse that ran and won. — James Salter

If you treat your wife like a thoroughbred, you'll never end up with a nag. — Zig Ziglar

The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live as variously as possible, to groom one's curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sunstruck hills every day. — Diane Ackerman

It is Australian innocence to love The naturally excessive and be proud Of a thoroughbred gelding who ran fast. — Peter Porter

He drops his head, his cheek pressed to mine, and he whispers in my ear. "If we go, we can't come back. Not ever. Things will never be the same."
I lean into him, needing to feel every inch of him, wishing he could absorb me and put me out of my misery.
"I'm not perfect Cami. I'm not a thoroughbred like he is. I never will be."
I'm under his spell, but I hear what he's saying. And I don't care. I don't care about anything but having Trick, having him in my life, having as much as he can give me.
"I hear sometimes the wild ones are the best."
He says nothing at first, but I can almost hear his smile as he no doubt recognizes his own words. — M. Leighton

I am still under the impression that there is nothing alive quite so beautiful as a thoroughbred horse. — John Galsworthy

He was telling us that Thoroughbred racing horses have these companion ponies that always stay by their sides, and I remember thinking, That's me. I'm a companion pony, and companion ponies don't solo. They don't play first chair or audition for All-State or compete nationally or seriously consider a certain performing arts conservatory in New York City like Marguerite had begun insisting. They just don't. — Jandy Nelson

Stan Slaughter is the thoroughbred of the environmental educators I've hired. Second place is not even close. — Mike Patton

The difference between a mongrel and a thoroughbred, whether brute or man, is not in swiftness, beauty, or endurance, but in courage. — Austin O'Malley

Imagine yourself sitting on top of a great thoroughbred horse. You sit up there and you just feel that power. That's what it was like playing quarterback on that team [the Pittsburgh Steelers]. It was a great ride. — Terry Bradshaw

Racing a thoroughbred grand prix car in front of a home crowd will be a surreal and mighty experience. — Nigel Mansell

The soldier takes pride in saluting his Captain,
The devotee proffers a knee to his Lord,
Some back a mare thrown from a thoroughbred,
Troy backed its Helen, Troy died and adored;
Great nations blossom above,
A slave bows down to a slave. — William Butler Yeats

A cat can outrace the best thoroughbred horse if only it can grasp the idea of racing. — Mark Helprin

You can't win the Kentucky Derby unless you're on a thoroughbred. — Joe Torre

As the dog becomes thoroughbred in the laws of clan and caste; obedient, fraternal and loyal; so is the man who accepts the gentleman's code. — Gelett Burgess

The Thoroughbred exists because its selection has depended, not on experts, technicians, or zoologists, but on a piece of wood: the winning post of the Epsom Derby. If you base your criteria on anything else, you will get something else, not the Thoroughbred. — Federico Tesio

I think every chef, not just in America, but across the world, has a double-edged sword - two jackets, one that's driven, a self-confessed perfectionist, thoroughbred, hate incompetence and switch off the stove, take off the jacket and become a family man. — Gordon Ramsay

Stolid pack-animals are much more fit for carrying loads than thoroughbred horses: who ever subdued their noble speed with a heavy burden? — Seneca.

Her efforts received encouragement. In fact, they were welcomed as the Tallises began to understand that the baby of the family possessed a strange mind and a facility with words. The long afternoons she spent browsing through the dictionary and thesaurus made for constructions that were inept, but hauntingly so: the coins a villain concealed in his pocket were 'esoteric,' a hoodlum caught stealing a car wept in 'shameless auto-exculpation,' the heroine on her thoroughbred stallion made a 'cursory' journey through the night, the king's furrowed brow was the 'hieroglyph' of his displeasure. — Ian McEwan

There can be no two opinions as to what a highbrow is. He is the man or woman of thoroughbred intelligence who rides his mind at a gallop across country in pursuit of an idea. — Virginia Woolf

The story is told that when Joe was a child his cousins emptied his Christmas stocking and replaced the gifts with horse manure. Joe took one look and bolted for the door, eyes glittering with excitement. 'Wait, Joe, where are you going? What did ol' Santa bring you?' According to the story Joe paused at the door for a piece of rope. 'Brought me a bran'-new pony but he got away. I'll catch 'em if I hurry.' And ever since then it seemed that Joe had been accepting more than his share of hardship as good fortune, and more than his share of shit as a sign of Shetland ponies just around the corner, Thoroughbred stallions just up the road. — Ken Kesey

A thoroughbred business man cannot enter heartily upon the business of life without first looking into his accounts. — Henry David Thoreau

Yes, he's got all them different kinds of thoroughbred blood in him, and he's got other kinds you ain't mentioned and that you ain't slick enough to see. — Don Marquis

The secret is, first, get a thoroughbred horse because they are the most nervous animals on earth. Then get the biggest gun you can find and make sure the starter fires that big gun right by the nervous thoroughbred's ear. — Jesse Owens

As the long limousine purred to life Edwina felt as if she were Elizabeth, setting sail to battle the Spanish Armada. She was Elizabeth, damn it! What she had built no one was going to take away from her. Not her house, not her hotels, not her fine stable of horses
and most especially not the young thoroughbred she had left sleeping by the side of her Olympic-size outdoor pool. Some pleasures, she decided, were simply too enticing to give up. — Barbara Taylor Bradford

The lad is surprisingly strong and can turn a game with his incredible acceleration before applying a world-class finish. You can't kick Messi out of a game- he rides tackles like a thoroughbred horse. — Osvaldo Ardiles

There's only one creature in the world better than the man who is a thoroughbred. It is the woman who is a thoroughbred. — Anonymous

He was halfway to the house, thinking to set the cabbage inside the kitchen door,when a brown blur thundered past him.
Joanna Robbins tore out of the barn astride a magnificent chestnut quarter horse. She leaned forward in the saddle,hat flopping against her back, hair streaming out behind her in a wild curly mass as she urged her mount to a full-out gallop. Unable to do anything but stare, Crockett stood dumbstruck as she raced past.
She was the most amazing horsewoman he'd ever seen. Joanna Robbins. The shy creature who claimed painting and reading were her favorite pastimes had just bolted across the yard like a seasoned jockey atop Thoroughbred. She might have inherited her mother's grace and manners, but the woman rode like her outlaw father.Maybe better. — Karen Witemeyer

Once upon a time, before the boys were killed and when there were more horses than cars, before the male servants disappeared and they made do, at Upleigh and at Beechwood, with just a cook and a maid, the Sheringhams had owned not just four horses in their own stable, but what might be called a 'real horse', a racehorse, a thoroughbred. Its name was Fandango. It was stabled near Newbury. It had never won a damn thing. But is was the family's indulgence, their hope for fame and glory on the racecourses of southern England. The deal was that Pa and Ma - otherwise known in his strange language as 'the shower' - owned the head and body and he and Dick and Freddy had a leg each.
'What about the fourth leg?'
'Oh the fourth leg. That was always the question. — Graham Swift

During long, slow distance training, you should think of yourself as a thoroughbred disguised as a plow horse. No need to give yourself away by running fast. — Marty Liquori

Murder is the thoroughbred stable. Murder is a shine and a dazzle, a smooth ripple like honed muscle, take your breath away. Murder is a brand on your arm, like an elite army unit's, like a gladiator's, saying for all your life: One of us. The finest. — Tana French

Emulation, even in brutes, is sensitively "nervous." See the tremor of the thoroughbred racer before he starts. The dray-horse does not tremble, but he does not emulate. It is not his work to run a race. Says Marcus Antoninus, "It is all one to a stone whether it be thrown upward or downward." Yet the emulation of a man of genius is seldom with his contemporaries, that is, inwardly in his mind, although outwardly in his act it would seem so. The competitors with whom his secret ambition seems to vie are the dead. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Thoroughbred racing is really my true passion. I'm living my dream. — David Cassidy