Pure Prospect

By Marcus Hersh

An unraced 4-year-old posted nine officially timed workouts at Hawthorne and Arlington between February and December in 2014. The horse’s name, Pure Prospect, was a misnomer.

“I was told that she just did not want to race, that she would come out of the starting gate at a canter, not a gallop,” said Dr. Buffy Cramer-Hamman.

Cramer-Hamman knows this animal well. Pure Prospect, deemed unsuitable as a race horse, got a second chance through the Galloping Out program. Re-trained for adoption, she became Cramer-Hamman’s first horse in the spring of 2015.

Pure Prospect now is called Pandora at the barn. Her show name is Temptation. Cramer-Hamman, who is a clinical psychologist, has Pandora in a hunter-jumper program. “The equestrian activities are my relaxation away from my job,” she said.

Relaxation? Pandora is down with that. “She has a lovely temperament – loves her people,” said Cramer-Hamman. “She is a thoroughbred with a warm-blood temperament. We have a number of thoroughbreds at the barn that are more push than pull kinds of horses.”

The barn can be found at Tukaway Farm in Elgin, Illinois. And you will find Pandora, once Pure Prospect, by looking up. Cramer-Hamman said the mare, now 7, measures just shy of 18 hands, which is about as tall as a thoroughbred gets. She is as long as she is high, too, and even now may still be coming into full maturity.

Thanks to Galloping Out and Cramer-Hamman, the horse is getting that chance.