Shannon Kelly always felt at home on the backside of racetracks and considered the people in that community to be family. As the granddaughter of Hall of Fame trainer Thomas “T.J.” Kelly, she grew up spending her summers in the barn area at Saratoga. Her uncle, Pat Kelly, and father, Tim, also trained horses. The latter went on to become a racing official at New York Racing Association tracks.
“My grandfather was very close with his staff,” Kelly said, remembering the community meals that the Kelly family often put on for stablehands. “They were part of our family and many of them worked their whole careers for him. That's very telling and close to my heart.
“My family has been very lucky to have successful careers in racing, and my grandfather was lucky to win the races he did and get elected to the Hall of Fame,” she said. “That doesn't happen without the grooms, hotwalkers, nightwatchmen, and foremen – all of those people. There is a whole community that this is their entire livelihood, and it's something that is so special about our sport. Most of the grooms and hotwalkers care deeply for these horses, so that when a horse wins it's just as much a win for them as it is for the owner. It's their whole life. It has to be when you work in horse racing; it's a 24/7, 365 job.”
Kelly had no interest in following the family footsteps into a career as a trainer, but with racing as her whole life, she wanted to be engaged in some way. An internship at The Jockey Club led her to the organization's Safety Net Foundation, where she worked alongside Nancy Kelly (no relation) for several years before the latter retired in 2018. Shannon Kelly is now the executive director of The Jockey Club Safety Net Foundation, overseeing the nearly $500,000 provided annually to those in need throughout the industry and across the United States.
The mission of the Safety Net Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charitable trust, is to provide “on a confidential basis, financial relief and assistance to needy members of the Thoroughbred industry and their families.”
Kelly admits that the foundation historically had been New York and Kentucky centric, where The Jockey Club offices were located. It also did its good work quietly and behind the scenes, except for its fundraising efforts through events like “Fashionable Fillies,” which has expanded from New York into several other states.
Since taking the helm, Kelly has been a road warrior, meeting with chaplains, horsemen's organizations and racetrack executives around the country.
“It was my goal to try and be more present in places where we didn't have offices,” she said. “We can't truly address the need unless I can see it and get to know the boots on the ground, the chaplains and others who are there.
“We need to be more present so that people who are in a financial position to support our efforts know what we are doing. They want to know. They want to see where the work is going. We're a national organization trying to get the help to as many people in as many racing jurisdictions as we can. So the goal is to get in front of as many people as we can.”
Kelly learned in her travels to racetracks across the country that the need for assistance is there, and that it won't go away without a concerted effort to address issues she raised during a compelling talk at the 2022 Jockey Club Round Table in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
“Quite regularly we receive calls for help with filling a food pantry for the backstretch workers,” she to an audience of wealthy horse owners, breeders and racing executives. “This assistance does not come in the form of a few cans of soup. We are allocating tens of thousands of dollars for food pantries. What does that tell us? That tells us that our workforce on our own backstretches are unable to satisfy this basic human need. The people who feed our precious equine athletes cannot feed themselves.”
Kelly walks a fine line between being critical of an industry for its employment practices and needing the help and support of that same industry for the foundation to fulfill its mission.
“I don't want to say necessarily that the problem is wages, but what we are seeing now,” Kelly said, “is that many in the community are having a tough time just getting by, and not because of physical injury or sickness. It's just a general financial need. The Safety Net's mission is more for that emergency, someone who has lost income from being sick or injured or has fallen on hard times and may need help for a couple of months. That's where most of our assistance lands, more and more of it involving insurance or medical bills, which are outrageous.”
Kelly points to circuits that have medical or dental services available for backstretch workers. In the case of NYRA tracks, day care facilities are also provided. She would like to see more jurisdictions adopt similar programs providing benefits to backstretch workers.
“Where do you begin? Who does it start with?” she said. “Everyone needs to be aware, no matter what your role is in the industry, that there is this need. The first step is acknowledging that we might have an issue we need to address. There are a lot of people doing good things, so maybe we can start with getting everyone involved in 'human services' roles in a room together and addressing where the problems are and who can fix them.”
Addressing these problems on an industry-wide basis is not just a professional aspiration for Kelly. It's personal.
“I've seen these people my whole life, I've grown up around them, and they meant everything to my family and the success we've had,” she said. “I feel it's only right that I dedicate my career to trying to make their lives better, or at least knowing they have someone to call. We might not be able to do everything, but we can connect them to people we know and help them in the immediate moment as much as we can.”
Through her dedication to helping those horse industry workers seeking assistance and for amplifying the backstretch issues that need to be addressed, Shannon Kelly is a difference maker. If you would like to make a difference, please consider a donation to The Jockey Club Safety Net Foundation.
Difference Makers is presented by Richard Pearson's Avion Law, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based firm which primarily represents owners in the private aviation sector. Avion Law has a “giving back” program supporting awareness campaigns and donating to charitable organizations in and outside of horse racing. For more information on Avion Law, click here.
The post For Shannon Kelly, Assisting Backstretch Workers Is A Personal Mission: Difference Makers Presented By Avion Law appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
