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Watch The TRF Second Chances Program Horse Show On Oct. 21

Join us at 8 p.m. ET on Oct. 21 to “come inside” the program at Lowell Correctional Institution. Our global audience will See, Hear and Feel the magic of the horses who are changing the lives of the women who love them. This special livestream of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation Lowell 20th Anniversary “Horse Show” will present the horses and the women of the Second Chances program as they work together, every day, to care for one another and to build brighter futures.

Prepare to be inspired! For more than two decades, thanks to extraordinary support from the Thoroughbred industry and the Florida Department of Corrections, this unique program has been “Saving Horses and Changing Lives”. With the success of each graduate, the ripple effect on friends, family, colleagues and neighbors in society is beyond measure.

Read more about the impact of the Lowell program in this week's edition of our In Their Care series. Writer Tom Pedulla spoke with women say their lives were altered (or in one case, saved) by their powerful bonds with off-track Thoroughbreds.

Paulick Report News Editor Chelsea Hackbarth met a successful graduate of another, similar program at the Blackburn Correctional Facility in Lexington, Ky. That TRF program gave Joshua Ison the job skills he needed to launch a new career after completing his sentence. Read more here.

The livestream is set to begin at 8 p.m. ET and will be available in the embedded video player below.

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Study: No Proof Horses Bond To Humans

Though many horse owners believe their horses are bonded to them, The Horse reports there's actually no scientific evidence demonstrating this.

Dr. Elke Hartmann of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences compared horse and human bonds to the bonding that occurs between dogs and humans. Dogs often consider their humans safe and will stay near them when they are afraid. Hartmann notes that horses may not express their attachment in the same ways dogs do, seeking them out in times of stress, or jumping on or playing with humans. We don't yet know what behaviors to look for demonstrating attachment from horses.

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Hartmann said evidence has shown that horses are often relaxed around humans with whom they are familiar, though this may depend on the type of training the horse receives from the human. To determine if positive reinforcement caused horses to bond with their trainers, Hartmann and a research team used 12 Standardbred school horses between five and 13 years old in a recent study. The horses had been trained for handling, riding and driving by students using negative reinforcement (meaning the release of pressure).

The horses were given tests using a familiar and an unfamiliar human, both before and after training which used different reinforcement models: negative reinforcement alone, negative reinforcement with food-based positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement with wither-scratching positive reinforcement.

Hartmann reported that no matter the training method, all horses were calmer after the training, but in general, they showed little difference between the familiar trainer and the unfamiliar human.

Horses taking part in the obstacle course after training using wither scratching took significantly less time to complete the course when paired with the familiar trainer. The scientists believe that scratching may aid in the development of a horse-trainer bond since it's a mutual grooming technique.

Though humans who spend more time with their horses may develop attachments, Hartmann believes more work is needed to prove the phenomenon happens for the horse. Until then, Hartmann encourages humans to manage their equine relationship expectations. Horse owners shouldn't put themselves in dangerous situations because they feel the horse “loves” them and therefore won't harm them: A horse might not respond the way a bonded human would.

‘A Breeder’s Responsibility’: Racing Owner/Breeders Take Horse From Foaling Stall To Thoroughbred Makeover

For many riders at last week's Thoroughbred Makeover, the competition represented the culmination of a goal that had been nearly a year in the making. Riders can begin training their recently-retired racehorses for the October competition no earlier than December of the preceding year, since the objective of the event is to showcase the rapid progress an off-track Thoroughbred (OTTB) can make in a new job.

For one ownership group however, the goal of going to the 2021 edition of the Thoroughbred Makeover was born four years and eight months ago, before the horse in question had even stood and nursed.

Ryan Watson, Adolfo Martinez, and Heath Gunnison collectively form RAH Bloodstock and knew that the little bay colt out of Thunder Gulch mare Talking Audrey would be special to them. The trio had purchased the mare out of the 2017 Keeneland January Horses of All Ages sale for $1,200. She was in foal to a stallion none of them had ever heard of — Doctor Chit, a Grade 2 placed son of War Front who stands in Oklahoma.

They were drawn to the mare because Watson and Martinez (who is now the manager of Heaven Trees Farm) had worked with her female family at Darby Dan. Watson is stallion manager at Darby Dan, and Gunnison is the head hunt seat coach at Midway University. The three wanted to go in on a mare together, but they knew they wouldn't want to sell the very first horse that had RAH Bloodstock listed as his breeder.

“We thought, if we don't know anything about [Doctor Chit], we won't be selling the foal,” said Martinez. “We've gone to a couple of stallions with her since and had some nice foals, but the first one is pretty special. Your first child is always the one.”

The group struggled to get a registered name for their first horse; most combinations of the two parents' names ended up being rejected by The Jockey Club as too vulgar. (Talking Chit was a favorite but didn't make the cut.) Finally, they settled on naming him This Is Me after a song made famous in The Greatest Showman, which had come out around the time they were submitting name requests. Around the barn, the bay with a thin white blaze remained “Chit” or “Lil Chit.”

Chit became what's known around the track as a “morning glory” who showed lots of talent in his workouts but failed to deliver in the afternoons. Martinez said he was “a very polite runner — he let everybody go first.”

The colt's very first start, in a maiden special weight at Indiana Grand in October 2019, made them briefly hopeful that he had serious potential.

“He showed a little bit of talent by closing on the frontrunners,” recalled Watson. “After the race we're walking back, waiting for the runners to be unsaddled and I see the outriders go tearing around the backside of the track, going in opposite directions. You look, and there's a horse they can't pull up coming around the far turn. It was him.”

It was really on the strength of that gallop out that RAH Bloodstock and trainer Ronald Kahles continued on for another four starts, trying to unleash that drive without success. Watson remembers fighting a snowstorm to get to Turfway Park in February 2020 for what would be Chit's last start, a distant ninth in maiden claiming company. He asked jockey John McKee if he thought the horse under him had any talent at all, and McKee admitted he didn't think so. Watson, grateful for the honesty, happily took Chit home to begin the wait until they could begin re-training in December.

Chit with dam Talking Audrey

All three men grew up riding – Gunnison and Watson doing ranch work and team penning, and Martinez mostly casual trail and pleasure riding – so they had a good idea of what they were looking at as they considered a new career for Chit. Gunnison has made a name for himself in the hunter world, and they all agreed Chit's natural, smooth gait would set him up for success there. Gunnison did much of the riding, with Watson and Martinez standing by to watch, set fences, and lend support.

It wasn't until this summer that they wondered whether Chit might have some aptitude for ranch work. Watson was always happy to support the Thoroughbred Incentive Program Western pleasure classes at Scheffleridge Farm's hunter/jumper shows, so they threw Western tack on Chit and saw him maintain his long and low frame as though nothing much had changed.

It's an improbable combination for any horse – excelling in both show hunters and ranch work. Hunters are often thought of as somewhat narrow in their worldview, working mostly in arena settings, while ranch horses must be a little more rough and tumble and very brave with cattle. A level head and a smooth movement will be rewarded in both disciplines, however.

“He's really taken everything we've thrown at him,” said Martinez. “He's very level-headed and calm.”

Martinez said they brought Chit into an arena full of cattle along with several other ranch horses to make him feel safe in a group, gradually removing the other horses until he was working the cows alone.

“It's very much sink or swim,” said Watson. “He has to learn about them just like any other discipline – learn to track them, learn to follow them. He actually got good enough this summer where he was able to anticipate how they were going to move.”

A busy show schedule throughout late summer had the team out nearly every weekend at one kind of competition or the other. The hard work paid off, with Chit heading to the finals as the leader in both disciplines. Horses will be horses however, and a sudden stop at the very first fence in the hunter finale took him down to fifth in the overall standings. Gunnison brought him back to finish second in the ranch work division, and Watson said the trio could not be more thrilled with their experience.

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“We were just happy to get to the finals in one category, and two categories was just a bonus,” said Watson. “This horse has done so much for us. He is currently leading the Beginner Horse [division] in the Kentucky Hunter Jumper Association by 90 points or something like that. He's just been a phenomenal horse this year. We'll live to fight another day.”

The group expects Chit to move on to the three-foot hunters (an increase from the two and a half foot heights he saw at the Makeover) and the Take2 hunter series next season.

Not all owner/breeders can necessarily invest four years in a horse with the hopes of competing in the Makeover, rather than hoping to pick up a check. Still, Watson is hopeful that others in the racing industry can take away something from the RAH journey with Chit.

“A horse is a breeder's responsibility throughout their entire life,” said Watson. “It did not ask to come into this world. You are the one who brought it here. So it's definitely a breeders' responsibility to ensure that it's going to not end up where it doesn't deserve to be.

“It's so rewarding. Obviously they're bred for racing, but to see him compete in the preliminary rounds earlier last week, it was just such a proud moment to have everybody coming up to us and talking about what a nice horse he was. It's a very rewarding experience to know that something you have been responsible for creating is kind of the talk of the town and goes on and does something so significant in a second career. It's a really good feeling.”

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Toasting Maryland Million Winners In Second Careers: Talk Show Man, Phlash Phelps Compete In Mega-Makeover

Two years after retiring his multiple stakes-winning homebred, veterinarian Dr. Michael J. Harrison continues to find ways to celebrate Talk Show Man.

There are the memories, of course. As a racehorse, the Great Notion gelding won eight races and more than $450,000 in purses from 40 career starts from 2013-19, including stakes victories in the 2014 and 2018 Maryland Million Turf and 2015 Henry S. Clark.

There's also the pride satisfaction of seeing the now 11-year-old Talk Show Man thriving at his second career as an eventer for trainer Lindy Gutman, a one-time client of Harrison. He was one of 23 Maryland-breds to compete in the Thoroughbred Makeover and National Symposium, presented by Thoroughbred Charities of America, at Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington.

Then, there's the beer.

Right around the time Talk Show Man was being retired in the fall of 2019, Harrison's son Justin opened Farmacy Brewing on part of the family's Willowdale Farm in Reisterstown, Md. Many of the craft brews are named for one-time Harrison runners.

Talk Show Man, the beer, is described as a hazy pale ale brewed with fresh ginger and dry-hopped with Nelson Sauvin and Motueka hops and a 6% ABV.

“His beer is, I think, one of the better ones so I'm very happy with it,” Harrison said. “I told my son when he was making the beer and was going to name it after Talk Show Man that it better be a good beer. We don't want Talk Show Man getting anything that's not a good, popular beer, for sure.”

Talk Show Man, a member of the Retired Racehorse Project's Mega-Makeover Class of 2020, was one of four former Maryland Million participants at last week's event along with Legend's Hope, Parade of Nations and his longtime on-track rival, Phlash Phelps, a fellow two-time winner of the Maryland Million Turf and the state's 2016 male turf champion.

Laurel Park will host the 36th annual Jim McKay Maryland Million Day program, 'Maryland's Day at the Races' and the second-biggest day on the state's racing calendar behind the mid-May Preakness Stakes (G1), Saturday, Oct. 23.

Ironically, it was the beer that helped lead Talk Show Man to his new career. Harrison was approached one day by Gutman and her husband, Adam, horsemen and Farmacy Brewing regulars, asking about his plans for the gelding, who stands 16-2 hands.

“They come to the brewery fairly often,” Harrison said. “When the brewery first got opened, Lindy and Adam enjoyed it. She was my client at the time and she knew Talk Show Man had been retired. Lindy approached me and said [she] would really love to get him for the Makeover program. I said let me think about it, and I did, and she's done a great job.”

In addition to Talk Show Man, the horse, the Gutmans also brought his namesake beverage to Kentucky.

“The beer that my son puts out goes through cycles. There was no Talk Show Man for a couple of months,” Harrison said. “He just brewed another big batch and he sent some down with Adam at Adam's request to take down to Kentucky with him so that they could have some of this beer with them.”

Talk Show Man competed in the Show Hunter and Field Hunter classes. Harrison is proud of the way his most successful Thoroughbred has continued to thrive beyond racing.

“It's great. It's a testament to the care that he got from his trainer, Ham Smith, and the veterinary care [of] Dr. John Sivic,” Harrison said. “Those guys have all done exactly what is best for him to keep him together and keep him so that he's been able to continue on and have an alternative career.

“From what I've heard from Lindy and how he's behaved, he's always game for a challenge or competition. He gets excited, and he tries incredibly hard,” he added. “That's pretty clear to anybody that's worked with him. The horse has tremendous heart.”

Harrison, who continues to own Talk Show Man, has been impressed with the bond that has developed between the horse and his new trainer.

“She's discovered some of the warmer side of him and things he likes, where he likes to be scratched and that sort of thing,” he said. “It's tremendously rewarding to see her go on with this. I know that she has said that the impact that he has made on her, as a person and even moreso as a rider, has been huge. That's really pretty nice.”

Sabrina Morris has a similar connection with Phlash Phelps, though it goes back several years to when she galloped horses for trainer Rodney Jenkins at Laurel. Bred in Maryland by Carol Kaye and owned by Ellen Charles' Hillwood Stable, Phlash Phelps raced 24 times from 2013-19 with seven wins and $434,801 in purse earnings.

Named for Gordon 'Phlash' Phelps, the Towson, Md. native and popular host of a Washington, D.C.-based morning drive-time program on SiriusXM satellite radio, the now 10-year-old gelding – also by Great Notion – was retired the month before Talk Show Man and given to Morris.

“It's been a pretty normal [transition] I would say for any racehorse coming off the track. I've been doing this for a long time as far as bringing horses and restarting them into new careers,” Morris said. “He came off the track August [2019] so he just kind of hung out until January of last year. I rode him a couple times. I had surgery on my ankle so I had some of my students ride him and we started teaching him to jump.”

Phlash Phelps competes in the Dressage and Show Jumper classes. As a racehorse, he needed six tries to break his maiden late in his 3-year-old season before going on a four-race win streak including the 2015 Find and Maryland Million Turf.

Morris said Phlash Phelps' second career is off to a similar start. He is a member of the Mega-Makeover Class of 2020.

“It's the same way he was as a racehorse. There was definitely a period of time at the beginning of his career where he had a ton of ability, and when the time came for him to be able to push through and have the confidence to know that ability was still going to be there, he would back out,” Morris said. “It doesn't surprise me that it's taken him a little bit to start to come around and start to come into his own.

“I'd say he hasn't finished learning exactly what his job is yet. That doesn't surprise me at all. He's very intelligent. He thinks a lot, and some of that is to his detriment. A horse that would not analyze everything so much would be like, 'Ok, if this is what you want, this is what I'm gonna do,'” she added. “I know him and I've been working with him and riding him for so long. I know he just needs the time and to be given the room to understand and then he's like, 'Ok, cool. No problem.'”

Morris continues to follow the blueprint of Charles and Jenkins, whose patience when Phlash Phelps was young and still figuring things out allowed him to develop and be successful on the track.

“If you look back at his career as a 2-year-old and 3-year-old [when] he didn't break his maiden. What would have happened if he had different connections and they stopped on him then?” Morris said. “He would have still had the potential to go on to a second career and do really well because he's an athlete, and he's intelligent, but he was able to prove his worth as a racehorse because he had connections that were patient with him.

“He's a natural athlete and is bred to jump. It's not that he didn't want to do it, he needed to really, really understand it in order to feel confident,” she added. “He likes to have a job. He likes to have interaction with people. He likes to feel important. He likes the mental stimulation of learning new stuff and doing new stuff, even if sometimes he doesn't act like it.”

Knowing the bond they established during his racing days, Morris was the first call Jenkins made when the time came to retire Phlash Phelps, who stands 17-2 hands. The offer was immediately, and enthusiastically, accepted.

“I was very happy to be able to have the opportunity to bring him home,” Morris said. “He knows where I am at all times on our farm. If he's outside in the field and I'm on another horse where I'm doing something, I'll look up and he's stalking me. Some of my girls and other people that are around kind of chuckle and say, 'You're his human.'

“We're just kind of two peas in a pod. We are both kind of ridiculous and over the top sometimes, but his nonsense doesn't bother me and he and I can interact,” she added. “We're kind of like an old married couple at this point. That's how I feel. We kind of bicker at each other but at the end of the day we actually get along very, very well.”

Parade of Nations is a member of the Mega-Makeover Class of 2021 and competes in Dressage and Competitive Trail for owner Beverly Strauss and the MidAtlantic Horse Rescue team. Bred in Maryland by John Williamson III, the 7-year-old Cal Nation gelding won 11 of 40 starts and nearly $280,000 in purse earnings and ran in the Maryland Million in 2019.

Legend's Hope is a member of the Mega-Makeover Class of 2020 and competes in Eventing and Show Jumpers for owner Barbara Honeffer and trainer Jazz Napravnik. Bred in Maryland by Two Legends Farm and David Wade and also a six-figure earning on the track, the 8-year-old Not For Love gelding ran in the Maryland Million Classic three consecutive years from 2017-19, his best finish a sixth in 2018.

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