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Fast Boat Is ‘Living His Best Life’ While Working Towards Second Career With Rosie Napravnik

After an 11th place finish in the 2021 Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint, multiple graded stakes winner Fast Boat has retired from racing. He has since taken up residence at record breaking female jockey Rosie Napravnik's Four Ponds Farm in Simpsonville, Ky..

Napravnik became the first female jockey to ever win the Kentucky Oaks in 2012 with Believe You Can. She was also the first female jockey to win more than one Breeders' Cup race, along with many other notable achievements. With lifetime earnings of $71,426,717 Napravnik is undoubtedly one of the most successful female jockeys the industry has seen, and she continues to pursue her passion for Thoroughbreds outside of the racetrack.

Since Napravnik's retirement from racing following the 2014 Breeders' Cup where she won the G1 Distaff aboard Untapable, she has started a new career of retraining off the track Thoroughbreds (OTTBs). In Napravnik's operation, the owners who send their racehorses to her continue to financially support them throughout their second careers as she offers owners the experience of Thoroughbred ownership from an entirely new perspective. This is the case with the newest addition to her herd, Fast Boat, who has spent time at her farm previously during his career following big performances on the track.

“He's a very happy horse in general, but he was the type where he could not wait to go out every single day,” Napravnik said about Fast Boat's personality. “It never wore off the entire time he would spend here (Four Ponds Farm). He was just as happy to go out every day, always ears forward. He loved the company of a pony. We have several ponies here so they all get to play the role of being the life coach for the racehorses. It relieves the anxiety for the racehorses when they're turned out.”

The 6-year-old gelding is a son of City Zip out of the Lemon Drop Kid mare, Yellow Boat. He was claimed by Joe Sharp in 2018 and went on to win the G2 Twin Spires Turf Sprint Stakes as well as the G3 Troy Stakes in 2021. He ended his career with a record of 10-1-3 from 28 starts and $706,349 in earnings. Fast Boat is now turned out with Napravnik's herd of “lifers” and will get a couple of months off before figuring out what his second career is.

“He's living his best life being turned out 24/7,” Napravnik mentioned. “He's kind of a boss out there, which I wasn't really sure he'd be. There's one pony out there and the pony doesn't really get grain so he's kind of the hungriest one, but now Fast Boat is the hungriest one, which is not usually the case when you turn a Thoroughbred out 24/7 for the first time. I would say he's adjusting well.”

Once Fast Boat does begin training for his second career, Napravnik said that he will follow the same routine that all of her new horses do.

“I start all their training off with flatwork, but first I take them all hacking and they go through water, up banks, and through ditches,” Napravnik said. “They do that until they can do it on the buckle and they're chilled out and trusting of any of these new questions that you're asking of them. So that's initially what I do to wipe the slate clean. It sort of opens their mind to the idea of 'we don't have anywhere to go.' They're in such a routine during their life on the track that they're used to always having something to do, so I let them figure out that we're just out here to enjoy ourselves. Then we start flatwork and I kind of let them take me from there.”

Napravnik is a regular competitor at the annual Retired Racehorse Project Thoroughbred Makeover at the Kentucky Horse Park. She has finished in the top ranks of multiple divisions and has her sights set on entering Fast Boat in the 2022 Makeover. This would not be Napravnik's first time entering with a high-profile racehorse, as she competed at the 2019 makeover with 2016 Kentucky Derby contender My Man Sam in the show hunters division.

“I have been itching to train a horse for barrel racing at the Makeover, which I know nothing about, so it would be kind of a fun experience to do that,” Napravnik said about Fast Boat's potential entry. “He's kind of built more like a Quarter Horse. He's got a huge hind end and he's built kind of downhill, so we might think about that. Like I said, he'll kind of tell me as we go.”

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UC Davis Equine Vet Program Expands With Donation Of Templeton Farms

The UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine's Center for Equine Health is pleased to announce the expansion of our equine facilities to Templeton Farms on California's Central Coast thanks to the donation of the 52-acre property by dedicated equestrian Gina Bornino-Miller.

UC Davis alumnus Bornino-Miller and her late husband William J. Miller opened Templeton Farms for business in 2011 as a world-class sport horse training, sales, and breeding facility near Paso Robles. Templeton Farms has been home to generations of carefully and lovingly bred performance horses, as well as a thriving boarding program.

“I am thrilled to donate Templeton Farms to my alma mater,” said Bornino-Miller. “It was our dream to build a world-class facility and I look forward to seeing it develop further to advance equine health and veterinary education for years to come.”

This generous donation will support the Center for Equine Health's mission to advance the health, welfare, performance and veterinary care of horses through research, education and public service. The additional location will provide new opportunities to bring veterinary students, residents, researchers, and veterinarians together to tackle important problems affecting horse health.

“We are incredibly grateful to Gina for this extraordinary donation that supports the future of equine veterinary medicine,” said Dr. Carrie Finno, director of the Center for Equine Health. “Templeton Farms is a spectacular property with a reputation for excellence and we are committed to providing top-quality care to boarders while enhancing our research and educational efforts to improve horse health and performance.”

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The UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine serves the people of California by providing educational, research, clinical service, and public service programs of the highest quality to advance the health and care of animals, the health of the environment, and public health, and to contribute to the economy.

“UC Davis is known as a leader in equine health,” said Dr. Mark Stetter, dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine. “Gina's trust in us with the farm that she and William founded will give us new opportunities to fulfill our mission to California and to serve the equine community.”

Shave And a Haircut: An Equine Welfare Issue?

On July 1, the Fédération Equestre Internationale banned competitors from trimming the hairs around their horse's eyes and muzzle, citing their removal as an equine welfare issue. These hairs, called vibrissae, are deeply embedded in the skin and help a horse sense the environment around him.

Dr. Andrew McLean of Melbourne University Equine Hospital in Australia and CEO of Equitation Science International, says that whiskers around the eyes and muzzle are unique, specialized structures that are larger than other hair follicles. Each whisker has its own blood capsule and nerves, and even the smallest whisker movement is perceptible and the information is relayed straight to the brain, reports the Chronicle of the Horse.

Whiskers help horses do everything from feel the ground while grazing to investigate objects, food, and other horses. Whiskers around the eyes help the horse feel what is nearby to avoid eye injuries.

Specific research on whiskers in other species has been done, but concrete evidence of whisker role in horses is lacking. In other species, whiskers do everything from help the animal maintain balance to assist with spatial awareness in water.

The FEI passed the rule unanimously in 2020. Horses with shaved or clipped sensory hairs are not permitted to compete unless the whiskers have been removed by a veterinarian to provide treatment. Germany banned eye and muzzle whisker removal in 1998, followed by Switzerland and France. Thus far, the U.S. Equestrian Federation, which governs horse sport in the United States, has not banned the trimming of sensory hairs for national-level competition horses, though the organization does encourage riders to consult with their veterinarian.

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McLean notes that it's imperative for organizations involved with horse sport to remain aware of how they are perceived by the public as it is the public, not necessarily the equine experts or the riders, who will determine the fate of equine sport. Called the “social license to operate,” McLean reiterates that regulating horse sport to ensure the welfare of the animal is key to positive community interactions.

Warmer Kentucky Winter Could Change Fescue Toxicosis In Broodmare Pastures

Horse farm managers with broodmares should carefully consider how recent weather conditions might affect tall fescue in pastures, potentially contributing to tall fescue toxicosis in early foaling mares.

According to Ray Smith, researcher and forage extension specialist in the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment's Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, above-average temperatures and rainfall in the past several weeks have resulted in good pasture growth on horse farms across the region. While this is great news for many horse owners because it will prolong grazing and delay hay feeding, they should monitor the situation for early foaling broodmares.

“Typically, we don't worry about early foaling mares because the cold weather takes care of ergovaline concentrations. But the cold snaps we have had so far have been brief and quickly rebounded to above-average temperatures, keeping tall fescue green and growing into the winter months,” Smith said.

Generally, ergovaline, the toxin produced by the endophyte commonly found in tall fescue, decreases rapidly once temperatures fall into the teens and grass growth is effectively stopped for the year. But because pasture grasses are growing deeper into winter than normal, this also means ergovaline production may continue. At the same time, other common pasture grasses like Kentucky bluegrass and orchardgrass are now dormant and therefore horses are less likely to graze them. Horses on pasture are likely consuming more tall fescue than they normally would in the spring and fall.

“Predicting when ergovaline concentrations will rise and fall is very difficult, so regular testing is still the best method we have. Managers should consider testing the tall fescue in pastures where early foaling mares are currently grazing,” said Krista Lea, coordinator of the UK Horse Pasture Evaluation Program. “Pastures with less than 200 parts per billion ergovaline are likely safe for those mares.”

According to Smith and Lea, broodmares are most affected by ergovaline in the last 60-90 days of pregnancy, so mares expected to foal before the first of March could be impacted by this unusual weather pattern and subsequent pasture growth. Pastures known to be higher in ergovaline in the spring and summer are more likely to be high now as well.

Mares negatively affected by ergovaline can have prolonged gestation, thickened placenta, red bag, poor milk production, dystocia and mare and foal mortality.

To reduce the risk to broodmares, horse owners and horse farm managers should feed hay and grain to reduce ergovaline concentration in the total diet or remove horses altogether from pastures containing tall fescue in the last 90 days of pregnancy.

Local county extension agents can help with pasture testing and submitting samples to the UK Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory for ergovaline quantification. Pastures under 200 parts per billion are unlikely to cause significant issues in broodmares and will likely remain low until the spring green-up. Levels observed in early December are unlikely to affect other classes of horses or cattle. Sample handling is key, so be sure to read this publication on how to correctly sample for ergovaline.

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