Off to the Races

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness, death, animal cruelty, and addiction.

Billie is one of the narrators and protagonists of Off to the Races. As a hardworking horse trainer with many years’ experience, she comes to Gold Rush Ranch confident that she has earned a position as a senior trainer. 

For Billie, earning her own place in the world is vital to her sense of self-worth—a perspective that has been heavily influenced by the negative experiences of her younger years. The narrative eventually reveals that Billie’s father is a disgraced former Canadian prime minister. Billie, who was raised to be a picture-perfect society daughter in order to bolster her father’s political career, was forced into the limelight when her father became embroiled in a sex scandal when Billie was a teenager. Billie was appalled by her father’s callous expectation that his family would suffer to make up for his mistakes, and she also condemned her mother’s willingness to accede to this state of affairs despite having been betrayed by her husband’s infidelity. As a result, Billie left her family when she turned 18 and has worked with horses ever since.