Although he was plagued with knee issues throughout his career, Metro still managed to retire with a solid slate of 8-3-3 from 27 starts, for earnings of nearly $300,000. He also placed second in the 2005 With Anticipation Stakes at 2 and third in the Pebo's Guy Stakes at Belmont Park during his 5-year-old season.

Horse racing is big business and during his five seasons of racing, Metro Meteor was campaigned by five different ownership groups. The last owner was Renpher Stable, which purchased him in a private transaction. At this point, Metro Meteor had gone from being a stakes and allowance horse to a low-level claimer at Penn National. Because of this, after racing just twice for Renpher Stable in 2009, it was decided the gelding's knees were in too poor of a condition to continue racing.

When the Renpher Stable, headed by Bob Oliva, put out the word that Metro was looking for a retirement home, one of the partners, the Krajewskis, decided that Metro would make a great light trail-riding horse. But after a couple of years of trail riding and lots of knee injections, supplements and wedge shoes, a veterinarian suggested that Metro's days as a riding horse would need to come to an end due to little flexibility in his knees.

This didn't discourage Krajewski though who is a full-time artist. Instead he let his creative juices flow as he thought about Metro's next adventure. According to Krajewski, "Metro is just a showboat - he hangs his head out of his stall and bobs it up and down, and he's really mouthy - always wants to hold something in his mouth. I was wondering if I could get him to hold a paint brush. I was looking for ways to spend time with him, because I just love him, and so I decided to teach him how to paint."

Metro was a great student and soon got the hang of painting. Krajewski chooses the colors for him, loads the paint brush with paint, and then the former race horse holds the brush in his teeth and applies the strokes to the canvas. The results of Metro's painting sessions were so impressive that Krajewski decided to spread the word about his story.


Metro has only been painting since early December, but his story has been broadcast on four northeast-area newscasts and featured on the Today Show. He has also been featured in several other online stories and blogs. Metro even has more than 3,400. "likes" on his own Facebook page. He now has his own studio at his stable and spends several hours a week painting with his owner. "He's a totally different horse when the cameras and recorders are here. He puts on a show and dances around - it's like Zenyatta in the paddocks," says Krajewski.


As a way to help other retired racehorses get adopted, half of the gross sales from Metro's work goes to New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program, an organization headed by Anna Ford. Krajewski uses the other half of the proceeds to help pay for Metro's costly knee treatments.

Metro's work is also shown at Gallery 30 in Gettysburg, and in December, the gelding was the gallery's best-selling artist. Since December, Krajewski has donated $3,000 to New Vocations from Metro's painting sales, which says a lot about the quality of his work!

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