Tag: Kentucky tornadoes

Vaccarezza Raises $40K for Tornado Relief

Carlo Vaccarezza helped raise $40,000 to support Tornado relief efforts in Kentucky when he hosted a fundraiser at his Frank & Dino's restaurant in Lexington Sunday. Vaccarezza offered complimentary food and drinks from 12 p.m. until 8 p.m. at the popular Italian eatery on W. Short Street, while patrons were encouraged to make donations to help families effected by tornadoes which ripped through Western Kentucky Dec. 11 and destroyed over 1,000 homes and buildings. Following Sunday's event, Vaccarezza issued a $40,000 check to the Kentucky State Treasurer Monday morning.

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Reagan Makes the Right Decision

Two years ago, 8-year-old Reagan Ingordo purchased a weanling daughter of Unified for $25,000 at the Keeneland November sale. The filly rewarded her young buyer when winning her career debut at Fair Grounds Sunday, but Reagan wasn't the only winner when Reagan's Decision (Unified) crossed the wire first in New Orleans. Before the race, trainer (and stepmom) Cherie DeVaux tweeted out that any purse earnings from the race would be donated to relief efforts following the devastating tornadoes in Western Kentucky.

Visiting Reagan's Decision on the Fair Grounds backstretch Monday morning, Reagan explained why she was donating to the recovery efforts.

“We wanted to give back to the people who lost their homes,” she explained. “It's good to help community. We might all need help some day.”

Reagan is the daughter of David Ingordo and, when asked what she liked about Reagan's Decision as a weanling, she sounded much like her bloodstock agent dad.

“She was very balanced and very athletic,” Reagan explained. Before the sparkling 10-year-old came out and she added with a laugh, “And she was cute.”

Asked what advice her father gave her when shopping at the sales, Reagan said, “He taught me to make sure they have good feet and good parents.”

Reagan's Decision was a lightly regarded 18-1 longshot when she went to the post at Fair Grounds Sunday, but her owner had plenty of confidence in the juvenile filly.

“She was training really well into the race, so I thought she would win,” Reagan said. “And also because she's fast.”

Reagan's Decision proved to be not only fast, but also scrappy as she struggled to find racing room down the stretch before tipping out to the center of the course and closing stoutly to just get her head in front on the wire (video).

Reagan admitted to some nerves as her filly weaved through traffic, but ultimately, “I was really happy and excited,” she said.

Reagan reported Reagan's Decision looked to be in fine shape Monday morning.

“She looks good this morning,” Reagan said. “She will go in an allowance race next.”

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Thoroughbred Community Raises Tornado Relief Funds

LEXINGTON, KY–Kentuckians across the Commonwealth woke up with a text on Saturday morning: 'Are you okay?' For most, it was an uneventful night aside from perhaps being awakened once or twice to the sound of high winds. But for some, unimaginable destruction and immeasurable damage occurred overnight as a catastrophic tornado hit western Kentucky.

As of Friday, 77 Kentuckians have lost their lives due to a storm that is expected to have affected an estimated 227 miles, according to WLKY News.

Bradley Boyd, a professional Quarter Horse trainer based in Princeton, Kentucky, sent his children to the basement Friday evening when he heard news of the approaching tornado.

“The tornado passed about a mile behind our place,” the horseman recounted. “I watched it pass at 10:21 that evening; I'll always remember the time. By 10:40, I'd had a phone call from one of my best friends. It had killed three of his horses and his place was just gone.”

As Americans awoke the next morning to news of the devastation, Boyd drove to what was left of his friend's farm.

“By the time I got there, they had caught their horses so we just went digging stuff out of their house,” he said. “It's heartbreaking to see people who build and build and have it all taken at one time. It's heartbreaking. But to watch the horse community come together since this has happened, it has been incredible. It's one of my favorite things about the horse community is that when it comes to these horses, everyone steps up.”

It didn't take long for the Thoroughbred community to jump into action. On Sunday, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association launched a GoFundMe page to aid in the relief efforts, kicking the fund off with a $7,500 contribution.

“It's something that the Thoroughbred industry has done in the past, most recently this February when there was some major flooding in Southeast Kentucky, ” said KTA Executive Director Chauncey Morris.  “We have a bit of experience not only in raising funds, but in figuring out what exactly to do with them when emergency strikes.”

As funds started to pour in, Morris got in touch with Don Campbell, a Thoroughbred trainer from Princeton and the next-door neighbor to Bradley Boyd, to find out what the immediate needs were for horse owners and farms in the area.

“Our farm didn't really have any damage,” said Campbell. “You can't even count it compared to what other people have. Most of the people who got hit lost everything–houses, barns, fencing, all their supplies, trailers, cars. It wasn't a typical Kentucky tornado where something gets torn up and something else gets left behind. It was more like if you were in the path of it, you just got wiped out. You can see the pictures, but it's nothing like it is in person. It's like a war zone. ”

Chauncey, Campbell and Boyd arranged to open up Boyd Performance Horses as a supply distribution center.

“Chauncey had told us to be ready because  they were going to send a bunch our way,” Boyd said. “I told them to bring it on and that we would make it happen one way or another.”

Since Tuesday, the KTA has organized shipments of hay, grain, water hoses, dog food, fencing and various supplies, working with agricultural centers in the area to help distribute incoming supplies to surrounding communities.

A church in downtown Mayfield, Kentucky

“The ag centers are sending people here to come pick things up and everyone is just overwhelmed with how much support we're getting,” Campbell said. “But still, we're getting more calls than we have stuff. I had 40 buckets sitting in a barn that I had kept over the years. I took them over to the distribution center and they were gone after an hour.”

“Just today alone, we've probably sent out almost 20,000 pounds of feed between hay and grain,” Boyd said on Thursday. “We're glad to be able to help in any way we can, but without Donn and the KTA, we wouldn't be able to do any of this right now.”

“We just heard that a semi-load of treated fence posts will be here on Monday,” Campbell said. “Chauncey has been ringing my phone off the wall to see what our needs are. I'm not talking about them sending a few pickup loads. Everything they're wanting to do is with semis. The way the Thoroughbred industry has stepped up has been unbelievable. That's the best way for me to put it and I'm proud to be a part of it.”

While the KTA will continue to provide necessary supplies for farms in western Kentucky, they are also beginning to look towards the future to determine how to best allocate their growing funds as the rebuilding process begins.

“We're taking care of immediate needs now, but for the medium and long term, we know that historically, federal disaster relief doesn't always pay for everything and some people fall through the cracks,” Morris said. “FEMA and SBA programs do not generally pay for people who are renting their apartments, homes or trailers. So that's where hopefully we can come in and help.”

Morris explained that the custodian for the funds raised through their GoFundMe will be the Foundation for Appalachia Kentucky. The Hazard-based organization is the same group the KTA worked with when they raised money for flood relief earlier this year and the program has already partnered with another organization in Paducah called the Community Foundation of West Kentucky.

“The scale of this disaster is so big and our industry generally has a very big heart,” Morris said. “Here in Kentucky, it's not lost on anyone just how good things are in the Thoroughbred business since the HHR bill was passed. We have a lot to be grateful for and this is our way of being good citizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”

The KTA's GoFundMe has received major donations from outlets including The Jockey Club,  Juddmonte Farms, Stonestreet Farm, Godolphin and Lane's End. Spendthrift Farm gave what is currently the largest contribution with a $100,000 donation.

“This is a terrible tragedy and our donation represents our entire farm and our dedication to our brothers and sisters in need,” said the farm's owner Eric Gustavson. “We so appreciate the KTA, UK and every other organization that has stepped up to serve.”

Claiborne Farm also contributed to the relief fund.

“It's awesome to see the Thoroughbred business come together and raise so much money for those whose lives have been turned upside down,” Claiborne President Walker Hancock said. “In times of need, we are quick to lend a hand, which makes me so proud to be a part of this wonderful business.”

Hancock was featured on a local news outlet this week after discovering a family photo in one of the farm's paddocks on Saturday morning and suspecting that it might have come from an area affected by the tornado.

“I saw some mares sniffing it, I thought it might be a piece of trash I didn't want them to ingest so I jumped the fence and grabbed it and sure enough it happened to be this picture,” Hancock told WKYT on Wednesday.

Relatives of the two children in the photograph saw the story run on WKYT and notified the family, who lives over 100 miles away from Claiborne in Campbellsville, Kentucky.

 

Another high-profile stud farm in Lexington has helped raise awareness for the KTA relief fund as Coolmore's Ashford Stud auctioned off a 2022 season to Triple Crown winner Justify with the proceeds benefitting the fund. The bidding was announced on Monday and closed on Friday, with a winning bid of $95,000 from Craig Bernick. Additional bidders included Ken Donworth, Dennis Drazin and Bobby Rankin.

Coolmore will be making an additional donation along with the proceeds raised from the Justify season.

“One of the greatest things about this business is that even though we are competitors in certain aspects, when times are tough and the need is there, the horse business shows great solidarity,” said Coolmore's Adrian Wallace. “It's great to see farms, veterinary practices, breeders and trainers come together to help out. Western Kentucky has been very good to the horse business and it's time that we show our appreciation and help out where we can. Even though it won't bring these lives back, hopefully it will help ease the suffering that a lot of these people are going through.”

Other racing organization have also stepped up in the past week. Breeders' Cup donated $50,000 to disaster relief efforts, splitting the donation evenly between the KTA fund and the University of Kentucky's “Kentucky United for Tornado Relief” telethon, and the Kentucky HBPA donated $25,000 to the Team Western Kentucky Tornado Relief Fund organized by Governor Andy Beshear's office.

Several fundraising events have been organized by Lexington's equine community and will be happening in the coming weeks.

Multiple equine-related groups including the Kentucky Horse Council have joined forces to organize a supply drive for equine-specific needs. Donations including buckets, winter blankets, halters, lead ropes, wheelbarrows and water hoses can be dropped off at the Kentucky Horse Park's Alltech Arena from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Dec. 18 – 20. Donated goods will be delivered on Tuesday by Brook Ledge Horse Transportation. Learn more here.

On Sunday, Jan. 2, Frank & Dino's restaurant in downtown Lexington will serve complimentary food and drinks from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. All proceeds will benefit the families in Mayfield, Kentucky affected by the tornado. Owner/breeder/trainer and Frank & Dino's managing partner Carlo Vaccarezza spoke with the TDN on Thursday regarding the event.

As of Saturday afternoon, the KTA's GoFundMe had surpassed $308,000 in funds raised with over 290 donations made. Click here to view.

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This Side Up: Let’s Be the Best of Neighbors in ’22

They say it's an ill wind that blows no good and, sure enough, consoling fragments of human kindness were strewn even among the deadly havoc in Western Kentucky last week.

But besides the substantial gestures of solidarity from the Bluegrass, including the auctioning of a live foal season to a Triple Crown winner, disasters like this also tend to leave glinting in their wake tiny shards of the life force by which our species has achieved viability amidst its volatile habitat.

The tattered photograph of two smiling children, for instance, discovered by Walker Hancock in a paddock at Claiborne and shared on social media and local television. Relatives recognized the kids and contacted the farm, advising them that the family was safe albeit their home in Campbellsville, 100 miles to the south-west, had been destroyed.

None of us can presume anything of this particular family, as a snapshot of so many lives turned literally upside down, out of nowhere. But whatever their story, and whatever awaits them now, those two carefree smiles serve as a legitimate symbol of what drives so much human endeavor; of the way people strive to protect their families, to nurture their children and–in the best cases–to contribute to the communities around them.

Altruism, remember, contains its own rewards. Certainly for those who prioritize self-respect over self-regard, but also in the pragmatic sense that those who give time, energy or expertise to “the common weal” (and Kentucky, after all, is a Commonwealth) will ultimately secure an environment in which they and their families can thrive.

Looking out for each other might seem a trite enough aspiration as we take our seats around the holiday fireside. But it certainly has an extra urgency this Christmas, between the abrupt local crisis of Western Kentucky and the one now painfully prolonged, the world over, to nearly two full years. For it is precisely when our reserves are most fatigued that we most depend on each other for new resilience.

And that is equally pertinent of the walk of life we travel together. For it has felt, for a long time now, as though horse racing is facing an ongoing, parallel emergency; one that shares many of the properties of the pandemic, in that it just keeps dragging out and appears to depend critically on communal effort, and a degree of individual sacrifice, for its resolution.

So as we raise a glass of holiday bourbon, let's ask ourselves how many of our problems reflect a failure to grasp that (to use what has become a bleakly familiar phrase) “we are all in this together”. And whether we can share a resolution, in 2022, to be better neighbors.

That means, for example, recognizing exactly what you're doing if you send a horse to a trainer whose record, realistically, can only support a pretty sinister interpretation. Because even if cynical enough to serve your own interests that way, you better not have a plan that extends anywhere beyond the medium term. Whatever your guy might be putting into your horse, you are yourself sticking a syringe of poison into the sustainability of our entire industry.

It also means that those horsemen trying to derail HISA had better be relatively advanced in years. Because their pursuit of what they narrowly perceive to be their own interests will, similarly, ensure that in the end they won't have a barn, farm, even an industry to hand over to their kids.

Too much of what has been going wrong is transparently the result of barefaced avarice. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when Churchill Downs this week requested to continue off-track betting in Illinois, despite cashing in one of the jewels of the global Turf. Apparently they are now “looking for an alternate racing solution in Illinois”. Unfortunately “competitive information” meant that they could not divulge how or where, but I'll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, even after the nauseating saga of disingenuousness that has brought bulldozers to the gates of Arlington Park, the Racing Board was split five-five and only rejected the application because a majority was required. (Actually some people will only believe the Bears are going to Arlington when they see that, too, but by now most of us have adopted the sportsfan's axiom that “it's the hope that kills you.”)

It tells you what kind of year we have endured that, for many, even the closure of Arlington was not quite the nadir. As we've often noted before, the tragic story of Medina Spirit has become too convenient a shorthand for ills far more grievous than can be laid at the door of his trainer. But it has certainly reminded us how unpredictable are the tides on which our whole sport must drift.

None can say what kind of doom or redemption may now be latent in another of these beautiful animals, for the time being as anonymous as the unraced $1,000 Protonico colt caught 21st of 47 by the Santa Anita clockers on December 6, 2020, precisely a year before a similarly innocuous breeze over the same track would unaccountably renew our infamy in the wider world.

There's obviously an extremely wide spectrum of self-interest, with that pair of “Juice Man” slippers nestling at one end. All we can do is remember that individual success, nowadays, will only be lasting if we have first observed our responsibilities to each other. That may not always have appeared the case. In the Damon Runyon era, indeed, the opposite view may even have had a little glamor. But I guess that's pretty much how we've ended up where we are today.

So as each of these sudden moral tornados make matchsticks of our collective reputation, one after the other, the only way we can rebuild is side by side, the best of neighbors.

Good neighbors are big-hearted and vigilant. They won't allow the alleys to be piled with syringes; they won't allow developers to put a wrecking ball through the community hall. Every smiling kid is theirs to protect: whether their own, or those being raised by neighbors or colleagues, or even by strangers 100 miles away.

And, you know what, it's exactly the same with the Thoroughbred itself. We bring horses into the world in all their innocence, with a temporary but momentous duty of stewardship. So if our kids are to grow up proud of where they come from, and secure in their community's future, then they'll want us to show the same, selfless devotion to our horses as they are entitled to expect themselves.

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