Remi Bellocq Part 2: Spreading the Word on BCTC Equine

In 2011, Remi Bellocq left his position as the CEO of the National HBPA to step in as the executive director of Bluegrass Community and Technical College's (BCTC) Equine Program.

Bellocq was initially drawn to the program when he realized he could help play a role in fixing racing's growing labor shortage. By heading up BCTC's program, Bellocq is now helping recruit young people to join the sport's much-needed workforce.

“We don't have anything in our industry that can predict what is going to happen with immigration reform at a federal level,” he said. “So, every year it's the same challenge and we can't count on that changing. We have to fend for ourselves. We have the mechanism to prepare really good workers–well-trained, domestic workers.”

The BCTC program first started in 2006 as the North American Racing Academy. But when Bellocq joined the team a few years later, they realized their need to widen its scope from a jockey school to an equine-based career and technical training program. Now referred to as BCTC Equine, the course is the first and only accredited community college-based program of its type in the country.

Today, there are between 35 and 40 students in the program each semester. After two years spent completing courses ranging from basic equine care to training theory, physiology and anatomy, students will graduate with an Associate's degree. Some students will earn a vet assistant certificate while others will choose to focus on breeding or racing. Those that take the riding classes will earn an exercise riding license from the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission prior to their completion of their courses.

Incoming students start off in a semester-long racehorse care lab, where they handle the everyday well-being of the program's 12 retired racehorses located at The Thoroughbred Center outside of Lexington.

“The students are bringing them in from the paddocks, checking vitals and feeding,” Bellocq explained. “They're doing everything that anybody in any barn is going to be doing, but we monitor them and grade them. We check off the list to make sure that not only are they cleaning the stall, but that they can do it in a certain period of time. We're making sure they can work efficiently and do everything that is required if you're going to go out and work for a top-level trainer. We teach to the current standards.”

To move on to the riding course, students must first take an advanced fitness test. Students that pass attend daily training sessions run by Program Coordinator and Assistant Professor Dixie Kendall and instructor Amy Heitzman. Before completing the course, students spend a few weeks working for a trainer based out of the Training Center before graduation.

“There's a lot of attrition because we're tough,” Bellocq noted. “We have pretty rigorous academic requirements and we'll put them through the ringer if they're late. But the result is that we have quite a few graduates out there working who have moved up. We've placed students in some pretty high-end racing operations, including Mike Maker, Christophe Clemente, Michael Matz and Todd Pletcher.”

The majority of students currently taking the exercise riding portion of the course, Bellocq said, are female. He stressed the cruciality of the industry's acceptance of an evolving workforce.

“Employers, trainers and farm managers have to wrap their arms around the fact that our workforce is changing and we have to adapt to that,” he said. “It's not a question of if women work any harder or can't handle the work that men have traditionally done, it's a question of adapting and providing work-life balance. A lot of trainers are paying better than they ever have, but if Amazon is paying $15 an hour with benefits, we've got to come close because that is who is going to steal our workers, not a trainer down the shedrow.”

Nebraska native Callie Witt is currently enrolled in the exercise riding portion of the program. Prior to attending BCTC, she galloped at several tracks in her home state.

“Since I was a little girl, it's always been my dream to be a jockey,” she said. “My parents' big thing was that I had to have a degree in something to fall back on, so I was really lucky to find this type of program where I can continue my passion for horses, learn how to ride and still get a degree.”

Witt acknowledged the challenges behind working in this industry.

“You've got to learn to have a thick skin. Not everyone is going to have the greatest things to say, but you've got to keep a good head, work fast and keep a positive attitude. Every day is hard work and you've got to keep pushing through it.”

Morgan Patterson is from Alabama and said she has also learned several valuable lessons from her time at BCTC.

“I think my biggest thing is to not overthink it,” she said. “I want to micromanage everything, especially with my riding. But I feel like I'm learning a lot here. Someday I definitely want to travel and ride abroad.”

Classmate Petula Randolph enrolled at BCTC because she knew it was an optimal location to begin working towards her dream of becoming a trainer.

“There's really no better place to learn what we're doing,” she said. “It's a really good environment and less stressful than learning on the job. You get quality instruction here and you know you're learning the right things.”

Randolph grew up attending races at her home track, Retama Park, and said she would like to return to Texas to win a top race there someday.

“If I could train a horse to run in the Sam Houston Ladies' Classic, that would be pretty cool because Midnight Bisou won there.”

Bellocq said that one of his favorite encounters with the students is their annual trip to Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby week for a tour of the backstretch, where students have the opportunity to chat with some of the top trainers.

“It's kind of eye-opening for them,” he said. “All those superstars will say the same thing, 'You're not going to make a lot of money starting off, you're going to work crazy hours and really have to pay your dues. But if you have the passion and you love what you do, then you can rise as far as you want to in this industry.' That's really inspiring for our students because they're not hearing it from their teachers, they're hearing it from the people they see in the racing news all the time, and that has such weight.”

As the program continues to grow, Bellocq enjoys seeing their work come to fruition as graduates excel in their careers across all facets of the industry.

“We have an alumni group that will meet for a big barbecue every year during Keeneland and it's great to see them all compare notes on who they're working for,” Bellocq said. “For our graduates, we have a great network of internships and mentorships.  We have stellar employers who say, 'Listen, just send me a good student and I'll always have jobs for them.' And that's a really great testament to our program.”

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Remi Bellocq Part 1: Keeping it Light at the TDN

In just less than a week, thousands of Derby-goers will pass under a 36 foot-long mural in the heart of the clubhouse at Churchill Downs depicting every jockey to win one of the first 130 editions of the GI Kentucky Derby.

The hand behind this Churchill Downs fixture may be unknown to many passers-by, but generations of racing fans quickly recognize the inscribed signature–Peb.

Artwork from Eclipse winner Pierre 'Peb' Bellocq is displayed at racetracks across the country, from Churchill Downs and Keeneland to Arlington, Del Mar, Oaklawn, Belmont, Aqueduct and the Meadowlands. Last year, the cartoonist was selected for the National Museum of Racing's Joe Hirsch Media Roll of Honor.

While the renowned artist-and author of several books- has stepped away from his sketchpad for the most part at the age of 95, his son Remi Bellocq, former CEO of the National HBPA and the current executive director of Bluegrass Community and Technical College's Equine Program, is now following in his father's footsteps.

“It's kind of like the family business,” the younger Bellocq cartoonist said. “I always joke, it's kind of like if you want to be a standup comedian and having Richard Pryor or Jerry Seinfeld as a parent because, you know, how can you live up to that? So I try to kind of carve out my own style.”

Soon, Bellocq will partner with the TDN to share his work with the racing community. His first piece will appear as a prelude to Kentucky Derby weekend.

“I've got some fun ideas for Derby-themed cartoons,” he hinted. “But I'm not going to share those yet because I want to keep them a surprise.”

Bellocq said he hopes to bring a bit of lightheartedness via his new platform, even on some of racing's more sensitive subjects.

“My father taught me a really good lesson,” Bellocq shared. “He said, 'Listen, there's an envelope and you want to push the edge of that envelope. You want to make it memorable and poignant, but stop short of where it gets to be crass or insulting.' So I've tried in my work to take a position and maybe push the envelope a little, but always with the idea that if you have 10 people and five people love it and five hate it, at least everybody chuckled.”

Hailing from several generations of skilled horsemen, the Bellocq family left their home in France in the early 1950s when demand for Pierre's work was first taking off. The two eldest sons of Pierre's five children were born in France while Remi and his two sisters were born in the U.S., but Bellocq said the family still spoke French at the dinner table.

He remembers growing up in Queens watching his father's fame grow in his role as the editorial cartoonist for the Morning Telegraph and its sister paper, Daily Racing Form.

Pierre and Remi Bellocq on the evening Pierre received The Jockey Club Metal in 2016. | photo courtesy Remi Bellocq

“Growing up watching him draw, my siblings and I all kind of doodled a bit at school, and I guess I kind of followed in his footsteps,” Bellocq said.

While the younger Bellocq did enjoy drawing as a hobby during childhood, he said his true passion was always for the horse.

“My first horse came over from a trainer named John Russell,” Bellocq recalled. “He was the very first person to start really worrying about where his horses went after their careers, before it became a big issue. I had my backyard horse in central New Jersey and I kind of taught myself to ride. Every day I would come back with branches in my helmet because he would just take off with me.”

Bellocq caught on quickly though, and by the time he was a teenager, he was up early in the mornings galloping horses at Belmont Park before school began. During the summers, he traveled to Normandy to work for owner, breeder and trainer David Powell. While overseas, he had an opportunity to become an amateur rider.

After traveling throughout North America and Europe as a jockey, Bellocq founded the Amateur Riders Club of America with his father while attending the University of Arizona's Agriculture Racetrack Management program.

“My first job was at Garden State Park in New Jersey,” Bellocq recalled. “Then from that point it's like working for a ball club. You move with ownership changes and all that. So I've had jobs at Garden State Park; Longacres in Seattle, where I met my wife; Hollywood Park; and Santa Anita. Then fast-forward to 2000, I was offered the job to run the National HBPA.”

Bellocq served as the National HBPA's CEO for a decade before stepping into his current role as the executive director of the equine program at Bluegrass Community and Technical College (BCTC).

“Our program has been around since 2006,” he explained. “We're formerly known as the North American Racing Academy, but in the last couple of years we've purposefully shifted from being known as a riding school to more of a workforce preparation and training program for all different jobs on the racetrack. Now we've officially changed our name to BCTC Equine. We're a full service-type program and as far as I know, we're the only career and training program on a community college level of its type in the country.”

Popular Remi Bellocq cartoon feature for the Florida Horse. | courtesy Remi Bellocq from Florida Horse

Bellocq said that as the program has grown in recent years, his role has morphed to help get the word out on what their training has to offer to the next generation in the sport.

“I kind of focus on advocacy and industry relations,” he said. “I also work on grant applications and things like that, but it's really outreach as much as anything.”

When he's not in his office at BCTC or on the ground at The Thoroughbred Center in Lexington overseeing students in training, Bellocq can be found in his home office wearing a different hat as he puts the vision for his next cartoon down on paper.

He said that readers should not expect to see the same thing from him every day. While most of his features are aimed to put a smile on the viewer's face, others may be a bit more thought-provoking.

“I'm not afraid to draw a cartoon on something that's maybe a little controversial,” he said. “But at the same time, you have to mix that up with other content, like if you see something super funny that happens on a day-to-day basis on the racetrack, you've got to do those as well. So that's the balance that I'm going to try to strike and hopefully the readers will respond.”

But in each and every piece, he said he hopes to conserve the timelessness that was often noted of his father's work.

“I admire what he did for all those years with the Morning Telegraph and Daily Racing Form because I can pull out some of his older drawings and they're still funny today. So that's what I aspire to do someday and hopefully in the TDN, I can bring a lot of laughter to folks.”

Watch for part two of our conversation with Remi Bellocq on his hand in the growth of BCTC's Equine Program.

The post Remi Bellocq Part 1: Keeping it Light at the TDN appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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