As part of the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance (TAA)'s month-long Holiday Giving Campaign, Jack Damico and East Coast Partners have pledged to match all donations up to $3,000 made to the TAA on Dec. 27, 2022.
Jack Damico joined the TAA Board of Directors in 2022 but has been a fierce supporter of Thoroughbred aftercare for decades. The forensic CPA & certified arbitrator has been involved with racing since 1986 as an owner and breeder. Damico also manages The Posse Racing Stable and East Coast Partners Racing Stable, which primarily race on the East Coast. Now, Damico asks those in the racing industry to make a donation to the TAA on Dec. 27 in support of the TAA's Holiday Giving Campaign.
“The Damico family and our East Coast Partners Racing Stable have a passion for Thoroughbreds and a commitment to ensure that these magnificent athletes have a safe and caring home upon their retirement from racing,” said Damico. “We firmly believe that Thoroughbreds love what they do on the track and need a new job at the end of their racing careers. Whether they are retrained to be sport/event horses, track ponies, riding horses, or just pasture pals at a sanctuary, we do our very best to be sure that there is proper aftercare for our horses.
“When invited to join the TAA Board of Directors, I was honored to say yes, because the TAA is making a huge difference in aftercare,” Damico continued. “The effort of TAA is such a bright spot in our industry, to counter those organizations and people who wrongly try to drag our sport into the gutter. I hope that along with my friends at East Coast Partners Racing Stable we can continue to be a small but important part of TAA's future.”
“The TAA is making great strides this holiday season to fundraise on behalf of our 81 accredited charities and we are so excited to have Jack Damico's support and generous pledge today,” said TAA Funding and Events Manager. Emily Dresen. “We invite everyone to join us and double your impact with Jack's match.”
TAA's Holiday Giving Campaign commenced Nov. 29 and is scheduled to conclude New Year's Eve. Those wishing to support the TAA, its 81 accredited organizations, and thousands of retired Thoroughbreds can donate through the TAA's website or text DONATE to 56651. During the Holiday Giving Campaign, TAA is also offering donors the benefit of sending digital holiday cards to colleagues, friends, and loved ones.
Throughout the end of the year, the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance will continue to host special one-day only donation matches with some of horse racing's biggest names. For more chances to double your donation, watch the TAA's social media, website, and industry advertisements for the next Holiday Giving match day announcement.
Given a large enough shedrow, it's not uncommon to come across a racehorse who's a little less self-assured than the rest. Sometimes they're just a nervous personality; sometimes they have a particular trigger that makes them uneasy, like a recent move or a neighbor they can't stand. Whatever the reason, these types often can be a puzzle for trainers, walking their stalls or weaving incessantly, putting excess wear on their shoes and soft tissues as they go.
When trainer Jane Cibelli acquired a horse who fit this mold, she did what many trainers before her had done – she called a friend to ask if they had a goat she could borrow.
The tradition of goats as companion animals for racehorses goes back decades if not centuries, and is supposedly the origin of the idiom “get your goat.” It's thought that Thoroughbreds take comfort in the presence of a goat because as fellow grazing herd animals they can substitute for the social interaction they'd normally get from another horse on the farm. No one seems to have made an academic study of whether other livestock species would serve just as well to calm Thoroughbreds, though our anecdotal reporting history of the Barn Buddies series suggests cows and sheep are also suitable, if less practical on the backstretch.
Cibelli and her assistant made a few calls and found someone who had a goat named Jeffrey they promised to put on the horse van from the Miami area to Palm Meadows quickly.
“He got off the van and I said, 'Oh he's huge. You could ride him,'” she said. “What he's taught me is how amazing animals are. We put him outside the horse's stall and it was an immediate 'Oh, thank goodness.' They looked at each other, and the horse had this glassy look in his eyes. Later, the horse was laying down looking at Jeffrey, and Jeffrey was laying down looking at him.”
To Cibelli's delight, Jeffrey has proven an intuitive companion to Thoroughbreds. It's the nature of racing barns to have horses who come and go, entering or leaving through claims or retirements. When one horse leaves, Jeffrey always seems to figure out who needs him next.
“He knows if a horse needs him,” she said. “When we first shipped into Palm Meadows, I had this one filly and she gets a little antsy whenever we move places. She wasn't really walking the stall but she was getting up tight, weaving, washing out. And immediately Jeffrey goes over to her and sat down in front of her stall and all was good. He's amazing.”
Jeffrey has his favorites, and he has his not-so-favorites among the racehorses. At Delaware Park, where the stalls have webbings he can climb underneath, he'll crawl into the stall with his favorite horses, while others may get a defiant head toss or knock of his horns on their doorframe as he goes by.
Jeffrey travels with Cibelli's string between South Florida and Delaware Park. He's not wild about the trip but knows the routine and gets his own box stall in the commercial horse van. Cibelli suspects he doesn't enjoy the colder weather up north, since as far as she knows he's always been a Florida guy.
“I do put a blanket on him, but the problem is finding a blanket that actually fits him,” she said. “You'd think a foal blanket would fit him, but it doesn't. The neck's too big. So I try to jimmy something together for him.
“He doesn't particularly like to be brushed or messed with. I think at some point he had kind of a rough life because he does stand up for himself. If there's something he doesn't like, he will turn around and let you know.”
Jeffrey consults with Cibelli assistant Matt Hartman as barn cat Lucy looks on
Jeffrey has developed quite a reputation in the barn area, whether he's in Delaware or at Gulfstream, where he is based this winter. Cibelli often gets calls first thing in the morning from trainers in neighboring barns who report he has taken advantage of the training hour bustle to wander off visiting. He even recruited an assistant – a fellow goat joined Cibelli's string in Delaware last summer, to Jeffrey's apparent delight, but was not able to make the journey south with them.
Jeffrey seems to take seriously the need for collaboration between him and other staff, and often finds his way into Cibelli's office.
“I get here first thing in the morning and the cat I've had forever is like, 'Feed me, feed me,'” said Cibelli. “And I look around and the other cats who have decided to move in are also saying feed me. And then here comes Jeffrey. So before I do anything I've got to feed my menagerie.”
When he's not serving as sports psychologist to Cibelli's string, Jeffrey likes to kick back with a snack. Cibelli and her staff have found his palate trends towards the salty. Potato chips, Cheetos, and spicy, crunchy snacks are big favorites.
“He's got quite a following,” she said. “I was worried he'd be annoying, but everybody knows him. He's just a cool goat.
“I don't know how old he is, but he's got a home for the rest of his life.”
If you want to keep track of Jeffrey's exploits, you can find him on his very own Twitter account @jeffreybarngoat.
When Kirsten Fada (now Fadenholz) first reunited with Inked, a then-4-year-old gelding she had once galloped on the track, her life was very different. It was spring 2020, and Fadenholz was living near Louisville, Ky., galloping for trainer Brendan Walsh at Churchill Downs in the mornings and working with her own retraining projects in the afternoons.
“I was really tired of moving so much and a little homesick. I've always had the passion for horses more than the sport,” she said. “The sport wasn't what drew me in; the horses drew me in. And where else can you see so many horses in one place?”
“I was working my horses in the afternoon. I loved it. I loved the peacefulness. I enjoyed seeing them learn all these new things. I'd worked on young horses on the track and that's where my passion is, is to see the growth in the horse.”
Finding Inked again reinvigorated Fadenholz. After years of wondering and worrying about where he'd gone after he left her barn, the perfect twist of fate had brought the horse to the very property where she was retraining off-track Thoroughbreds (OTTBs).
The improbability of it all resonated with Fadenholz and made her reexamine the path she was on.
Just two years later, life looks very different. Fadenholz married and gave birth to a daughter, Josie, earlier this year. She left the racetrack and bought a farm in Wadsworth, Ohio, naming it Yellow Pine Farms. She offers boarding, training, lessons, and sales of sport horses – a few of them are Warmbloods, but her specialty is the off-track Thoroughbred.
“We've become 'the Thoroughbred people,'” she said. “Being in Ohio, it's not Lexington, Kentucky. To be the Thoroughbred people is pretty neat. We know how to feed them, how to care for them. We've had a lot of inquiries and people come to us for help with their Thoroughbreds. Most of the boarders we have are Thoroughbreds. It's nice to take Kentucky home.”
Fadenholz has made it her mission to gather up the horses she had in her string as an assistant to trainer Conor Murphy around the time she had Inked and help connect them with their next careers. So far, she's up to 10 she has tracked down and trained for resale or still has at home.
The most recent of her herd to come “home” was Frankincense, a son of Frankel who is now eight years old. Fadenholz had kept tabs on him while he ran but didn't know where he ended up after finishing seventh in a claiming race at Colonial Downs last summer. She later found him for sale by Sewickley Stables in Lexington, Ky., which like Yellow Pine specializes in selling off-track Thoroughbreds on to new careers.
Fadenholz bought “Frankie” and is taking aim at next year's Thoroughbred Makeover with him.
Her most sentimental reunion was with an Irish import named Emmaus. Murphy used to say the dark bay gelding was “her” horse because she galloped him exclusively when he was in her string. Emmaus showed talent as a stakes winner in England before his import, and was Grade 2-placed for Murphy at Woodbine.
“When you ride a horse like that, the feeling he gives you is incredible,” she said. “You feel like you could go into battle. It's the craziest thing.”
Emmaus suffered a tendon tear at Kentucky Downs in 2020 and Fadenholz knew he had been laid up for an extended period since then. He had nearly recovered when he was turned out and reinjured the same leg. Murphy turned Emmaus over to Fadenholz earlier this year but the leg wasn't progressing as she'd hoped. She later learned that its initial healing had been incomplete and resulted in stiff, inelastic scar tissue in the old tear so he was constantly re-tearing it with normal movement of the leg. After receiving pessimistic prognoses from various consulting veterinarians, she made the difficult decision to put him down. She ended up having to make the appointment with her vet three different times, each one being cancelled due to conflicting schedules for the vet or the equine undertaker.
Kirsten Fadenholz with Emmaus
“The third time, I had the horse on the hill. I'd already cut his tail off,” she said. “He's still lively. He's jumping around. We're on the hill and he's acting a fool. I just called it. I took him back into the barn and said I'm not going to think about this for another month. This horse doesn't want to go.”
With corrective shoeing and careful, targeted exercise, Emmaus is able to enjoy turnout now and runs and plays with friends, although the injured leg still doesn't function normally.
“Will he be anything other than a pasture pet? No,” she said. “Will we have him two years from now? I can't tell you that much. But he's here, and that's what means the world to me. I can provide him a good life, however long that may be.”
It has been a challenge to launch a new business, teach lessons, put training rides on young horses and launch show careers while also caring for a young child, but Fadenholz said she's had incredible support from family. She also believes her pregnancy gave her a new perspective on the athletic transition that horses experience leaving the track. Fadenholz spent most of her pregnancy out of the saddle, and it was a big transition.
“It helps me relate to what they're going through,” she said. “It's hard to be in work and you have a routine and all of a sudden you can't do it. That's how I felt with my pregnancy, and it's maybe how they'd feel if they were at the track and then got injured and they're sitting in a stall somewhere. I totally understand stir crazy. I relate to that.”
One thing that hasn't changed is Inked. He is still Fadenholz's star, and was the horse she trusted for her first ride after she had Josie.
“He's the jack of all trades,” said Fadenholz. “He's my lesson horse. He's my eventing schooling horse; we go schooling every so often and just play. We did go to a show over the summer at 2'6” which was my first time doing that … more than anything it was fun.
“Inked is still my go-to trail horse and pony. He's still my steady eddy. My stepson's nine; right now he rides a pony but in a year or two he'll be able to ride him. When Josie gets a little bigger, she'll be able to ride him, too. He's just the man.”
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He was there for her when she was ready to get back into the saddle after her daughter was born. And he's been there for her husband Mitch, too. Mitch was not, as they say “a horsey person” before he and Kirsten met, but Inked was the horse who guided him through his first Western riding lessons. After watching Fadenholz log many hours in a dressage saddle, Mitch now wants to learn dressage as well and Inked is still his steady, happy teacher.
Inked was the first dream come true on the path to a much bigger dream – looking down her barn aisle at Yellow Pine and seeing many of the same faces she had at Oaklawn.
“The whole crew's here,” she said. “I wonder if they recognize each other.”
A recent study has found that horses with cranial nuchal bursitis often improve with surgery. Horses that have this type of injury to their poll often stretch down and carry their head low; horses in the beginning stages of injury are often reluctant to flex at the poll and are resistant to go “on the bit,” reports EQUUS magazine.
Bursa are fluid-filled sacs found between bones and soft-tissue structures designed to decrease friction. The cranial nuchal bursa runs along the top of the horse's neck between the nuchal ligament and the atlas vertebra.
Dr. José M. García-López, with Tufts University, led a team of scientists who examined the records of 35 horses diagnosed with cranial nuchal bursitis at Rhinebeck Equine in New York and Utrecht University in the Netherlands. The horses were between 5 and 22 years old. The majority were English sport horses, specifically dressage horses. This supports the idea that postural demands may contribute to cranial nuchal bursitis development, García-López says.
For the study, 14 of the horses were treated with anti-inflammatories; the remainder had minimally invasive surgery to address the problem. The procedure allowed the surgeon to examine the inside of the bursa, then flush and remove debris and inflamed tissue.
The scientists found that 78.6 percent of the horses that had surgery returned to their previous level of work. Of the horses that received anti-inflammatories only, 66.7 percent returned to work, though some of the horses had to have the surgery later on to completely correct the issue. Of those, 25 percent were able to return to their previous performance level.
The horses that responded best to the anti-inflammatories had fluid buildup only – they didn't have debris or thickening of the lining of the bursa. Guided ultrasound or radiology can determine the extent of bursa damage.
Horses with inflammation only – no debris or thickening of the bursa lining – can be treated with a combination of steroids and polyglycan or hyaluronic acid. If there is debris present – or if the inflammation returns after the steroid combination, surgery should be performed as soon as possible.
