Graham Kirby paid it forward and saved a horse and family

by Matthew Lomon

It’s an indescribable feeling when humanity and horses overlap.

So was the sentiment from devoted lifelong horsewoman Susan Mollica in her vivid retelling of the time when a then stranger saved the life of her sons’ beloved horse almost 30 years ago.

“Now, this man didn’t have to; I had never met him before,” she said. “We brought Spud down and he said, ‘You’re going to have to leave him with me for a week or so,’ and basically told my dad he didn’t think he was going to make it.

“But he saved his life. He saved our horse’s life. If it wasn’t for him, Spud would have died. His kidneys were failing, they hadn’t given him anything to drink or eat and his organs were all shutting down – but Graham saved his life.”

That man was Graham Kirby.

A longtime horseman himself, Kirby was a friend of Mollica’s father, Earl Henry, who had horses of his own while working at Woodbine Mohawk Park and Georgian Downs.

Kirby’s career was dedicated solely to standardbreds — his experience with quarter horses like Spud was minimal, at best — but Henry knew he was the right man for the job.

“Dad said to me, ‘I know a guy, get in the truck,’” Mollica said. “So, I went with my dad, and he took me down, and I met Graham Kirby. Dad introduced us and said, ‘Tell him what’s going on with your horse.’ So, I told him, and Graham said, ‘Bring him to my house.’”

The story Mollica told that day was one of a family and a horse on the brink, in dire need of help.

“When my kids were little, we bought them their first horse [Spud],” she said. “The situation was we had no money, but we had bought our kids a horse. My oldest son [Christopher] is severely disabled, and the horse was for him to ride.

“We needed a place to board him and the place he was at, we didn’t have to pay board. The agreement was my husband [Bert] would do all the work — the fencing, wiring, trailers — anything that needed to be done on the farm. So, we agreed to it, and that was all perfect.

“One Saturday morning, we went down there. This place had been doing summer camps all week and they used the horse we had bought. When we got there, he was pretty much standing up dead. It was beyond words.”

Gutted by the condition they found Spud in, the Mollicas loaded him into their trailer and transported him back to their home in Cookstown, ON.

“We put him in our backyard, which I know sounds crazy, but Spud could hardly get on and off the trailer and into our backyard,” Susan said. “That’s how sick he was.”

Spud’s time in his family’s backyard was short-lived thanks to Kirby.

“He was a horse that obviously needed some caretaking, and I was willing to do that for them,” said Kirby, who reserved a stall in his barn for Spud free of charge. “It was no big deal.

“It was just fun for me to see them enjoy the horse; the horses will add years to your life. I just think he needed some care, and between all of us, we seemed to give him that.”

In Kirby’s recount, the challenge of nursing Spud back to health was very much a team effort.

“[The Mollicas] were always over there working with him, and the horse just came around,” Kirby said. “He was very happy at my place; he was here almost two years. They were always over there and willing to help do the work and take care of him.”

A traveling member of the Ontario standardbred circuit as both a reinsman and conditioner at the time, Kirby had a million excuses for why he couldn’t take Spud in, but not one crossed his mind.

He instead focused on all the reasons that made it the only logical choice.

“Christopher, he just loved riding that horse,” Kirby said. “He’s always had a great enthusiasm for harness racing. They built a special saddle for him and the horse — he was an old parade horse for the thoroughbreds — just took to Christopher and that old horse would just let him ride him and everything.”

Spud, along with their shared passion for horses and harness racing, served as the conduit that inspired a lasting connection between Kirby and the Mollicas’ eldest son.

“There was a communication barrier with Christopher, but I talked to him like I’d talk to anybody else,” Kirby said. “I didn’t flower it up any, I just talked to him the way I would anybody else and we communicated well… horses were our language.”

The other crucial component of Kirby’s instinctive decision to say yes that day traces back to his upbringing in the sport.

Some may dare describe it as regal.

“I started off with the Right Honorable Earl Rowe, former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, when I was a little kid,” said Kirby, whose duties included hotwalker at the Rowe’s Newton Robinson, ON farm. “He and Bill Rowe, his son, did more for harness racing than anybody I know.

“I can remember going to Windsor [Raceway] with the governor when I was a little kid in the big black Cadillac with the flags flying on it and a crown on the license plate, too. It was a very nostalgic time for me at that age.”

Being taken under the wings of Rowe and his son, who together founded Barrie Raceway and Windsor Raceway, was a formative experience in Kirby’s racing and personal lives.

“The Rowes were great people for harness racing and the Honorable Earl – I don’t know of anybody that didn’t love the Honorable Earl Rowe,” Kirby said. “He was a class act, a class act.”

A self-described “wild child” in his younger years, Kirby remains eternally grateful for the guidance and values Earl Rowe imparted to him.

Paying it forward was the least he could do.

“He gave me that experience when I was a young kid, and with Christopher, I felt it was always a way of giving back to a great man that gave me a lot,” Kirby said. “That’s how it all started for me – somebody willing to give to me.”

For Susan, that level of unconditional kindness is something she’ll never forget.

“Our kids went on to show at the CNE [Canadian National Exhibition] for two years with Spud,” she said. “They were able to go to different shows because of what Graham had done.

“He is such an incredible person. He’s devoted his entire life to standardbreds, yet he took the time to let a quarter horse — from people he didn’t know — go to his farm and he saved his life.

“It’s been over 30 years and still to this day, if somebody was in trouble, he would help their horse.”

What started as a moment of crisis later became the catalyst for a three-decade-long bond that remains unbreakable to this day.

“This story has grown into an absolutely phenomenal friendship between people where somebody just pulled up in a pickup truck and asks the other person to save a horse,” Susan said.

Today, the Mollicas continue to uplift the horses they cherish as the main foster home for the Ontario Standardbred Adoption Society.

It is on their Tottenham, ON farm that Kirby’s wife, Dr. Lia Jackson, volunteers her time as the vet for both the program’s and Susan’s horses – again, free of charge.

Kirby is still racing standardbreds. He, Dr. Jackson, and his stable of four are currently residing in Pinehurst, NC, where on May 1, they will begin the 15-hour drive home – stops already accounted for.

During the long hike, spent mostly on I-77 North, Kirby will have ample time to relive the day that still defines a lifelong connection.

“Words really can’t explain it for me, but it’s the camaraderie of horsemen, horsemanship, and racing,” Kirby said. “It’s just been a great experience for the last 30 years.”