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Racehorses get water workouts to protect joints, beat the heat at farm

By CNN

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    REISTERSTOWN, Maryland (WBAL) — A private farm in Reisterstown has a unique approach to exercise steeplechase race horses.

Two horses took a gallop Friday morning on the turf, on their way to see some friends for an unexpected form of exercise. But no saddle was necessary because the horses went for a swim in the farm’s pond.

“We currently have five horses here that are regularly swimming, maybe not every day, but at least two or three times a week, and it offsets having to gallop every day,” said trainer Cyrill Murphy.

Murphy told WBAL-TV 11 News that McTigue and Gold Charm are fresh from two big wins: McTigue at Saratoga and Gold Charm at Colonial Downs. Part of their recipe to help them win those races is their unconventional swimming routine.

“I don’t know if it’s the secret recipe, but it certainly helps us, and the horses enjoy it,” Murphy told WBAL-TV 11 News.

Murphy said the pond exercise also becomes a mechanism to combat the drought, which can cause the ground to get too hard and negatively impact the horses’ joints.

“It’s good for his cardio, gets his airway working, good for all his muscles without putting any stress on any bones or joints,” Murphy told WBAL-TV 11 News. “We do not have an artificial track. We literally train on the natural turf every day of the week.”

Murphy said the water exercises also help with the cooling process.

“You cannot make a horse fit, get a horse fit purely by swimming them, but you can help maintain their fitness once they reach a certain level,” Murphy told WBAL-TV 11 News.

He told WBAL-TV 11 News the results speak for themselves.

“It’s a big advantage to us. Is it an overall advantage compared to everyone else? I don’t know, but our results say it’s working for us at the moment,” Murphy told WBAL-TV 11 News.

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Furious Trump is considering removing Pirro over Reflecting Pool filing, sources say

By CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump is considering removing Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, over a Justice Department conclusion that problems with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool stemmed from a flawed renovation rather than vandalism, two people familiar with his thinking told CNN.The president is “furious” with Pirro, one of the sources said, telling CNN that he fumed about her all weekend. They added that based on his criticisms of her, they find it “highly likely she’s removed from her job.”The other source, a senior administration official, said Trump was “blindsided” by Pirro’s court filing: “The president did not know beforehand that she was going to do that.”CNN has reached out to Pirro’s office and the Justice Department for comment. The White House directed CNN to the president’s prior comments on the filing and did not comment on the substance of the reporting.“Frankly, I think she choked, because the judge was really vicious. Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her and went after her department, and I guess she choked,” Trump said during an unrelated Oval Office event Monday.The Justice Department acknowledged in a court filing on Friday that the president’s $14 million renovation of the Reflecting Pool was “hasty and botched” and said it was dropping the criminal case against former Olympian David Hearn, who was accused of vandalizing the landmark. Hearn previously pleaded not guilty to the felony charge in DC’s Superior Court.Trump and Pirro, a former Fox News host and longtime ally of the president, spoke by phone on Saturday about the court filing. Their conversation “wasn’t pretty,” said one of the sources, who was read out on the call.Pirro told Trump it was the career officials in her office that were responsible for the filing, another source said. A longtime prosecutor who oversees prosecutions in DC Superior Court signed the court filing asking to dismiss the case on Friday.In addition to the Saturday call, Pirro has spoken with Trump multiple times about the situation.Trump on Saturday publicly criticized the move, posting to Truth Social: “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM.”Pirro argued in her filing that the Department of Interior, led by Secretary Doug Burgum, “provided less than fulsome information at the outset of this case.”“Had DOI been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment,” it read.Despite those accusations, the president is not angry with Burgum, the sources said, and he continues to believe that vandals are responsible for the damage to the Reflecting Pool. Burgum dismissed Pirro’s argument in a social media post on Saturday, saying, “The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool.”The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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