Dedham fifth grade adopts racehorse

DEDHAM – Dee Frederick, a fifth-grade teacher at the Dedham School and a horse lover, wanted her pupils to use a horse in their life sciences study this year. Nonni Daly of Old Town wanted pupils to get to know her racehorse, Bruizer’s L’il Star, in order to teach children and get them involved in one of Maine’s historic sports, harness racing.

Frederick and Daly met, planned and were ready for the first day of school in September.

Frederick’s class came to school on opening day to find a bulletin board announcing “Guess Who We Are Adopting This Year” with pictures of Bruizer racing and at play.

The class began learning about the horse in their life science study. They wrote e-mails to the horse and he wrote back to them – culminating in a field trip to the University of Maine Witter Farm where the pupils learned about cows, sheep, beef cattle and horses, and had an up close and personal visit with their own racehorse.

In their language arts class, they wrote thank you letters to livestock manager Marsha Hamilton and the staff at Witter Farm and Bruizer.

The pupils continue to learn about the horse in science class. When spring and opening day at Bangor Raceway comes, a picnic is planned so that they can visit and watch their horse race for the first time next season.

His stall will have a picture of them and a sign telling visitors to the race barns that their class has adopted him.