The bill calls for a $20 million subsidy to be split evenly among the two breeds.

The money is seen as a critical lifeline as New Jersey's tracks do not receive revenue from any outside sources, namely from the Atlantic City casinos. Without the subsidy, Monmouth purses would fall behind those offered in nearby states like Pennsylvania and Maryland.

“What it does is give our breeders, owners and trainers opportunities through 2029,” said New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association Executive Director Michael Musto. “It establishes a continuation of the stability we have now in New Jersey. Thanks to Dennis Drazin [the chairman and CEO of Darby Development, operator of Monmouth Park] 100% of our money goes to overnight purses and that's the heart of what makes racing in New Jersey. It's really encouraging. It's really Dennis Drazin who makes this all possible.”

Earlier bills had already guaranteed the subsidy for 2024. The extension will now keep the subsidy in place through 2029.

According to the Daily Racing Form, last year, Monmouth distributed $31 million in purses over 56 live racing days, for an average of $553,000 a day, the highest in its history, with one-third of that money coming from the subsidy.

As a condition of receiving the subsidy, Monmouth, which is run by the state's horsemen, must issue a report to the legislature, the governor and the New Jersey Racing Commission on how the funds were appropriated.

The subsidies appear to be helping as Monmouth has recorded increases in average total handle and average on-track handle three straight years. The average total handle in 2023 was $4,032,648, an 11.4% increase over last year's average of $3,620,719.

Monmouth is scheduled to open on May 11 and run a 51-day meet. A 10 day meet of all-turf racing at the Meadowlands will commence when Monmouth closes.

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What makes the Simpson case unusual is that his guilty plea came some three years after the original charges against Navarro, Servis et. al. were unsealed and there was no mention of Simpson's name in the indictments released at that time. Court records released this week show that Simpson came to the government's attention as early as mid-November, 2020 when the government and Simpson's attorneys agreed on a bail package. What happened over the next several months and why was Simpson's name omitted from the original indictment remain unanswered questions. The Simpson development also raises the question as to whether or not more new names will surface in the near future when it comes to those being indicted as part of the drugging scandal.

Simpson both trained and drove, winning 1,643 races as a driver and 375 as a trainer. He last drove in 2017 and it appears that around that time he accepted a job as an assistant to trainer Rene Allard. Allard is among the bigger names caught up in the scandal and is currently serving a 27-month prison sentence after he previously plead guilty to one felony count of misbranding and altering drugs.

In a particularly troubling chapter in the Allard scandal, the Federal Bureau of Investigation intercepted a phone conversation in which two other alleged conspirators discussed the deaths of horses trained by Allard after they had been given illegal drugs. One reference caught on wiretap described the trainer's operation as the “Allard death camp.”

Court documents released this week detailed Simpson's activities, which included purchasing drugs at a pharmacy in South Carolina and then shipping them to a training center located in the Southern District of New York. Simpson also, the government claims, “administered prescription drugs to racehorses under Simpson's and others' control without a valid veterinary prescription, for the purposes of enhancing the horses' race performance.”

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If you need an extra steer, this gentleman additionally manages the syndicate behind the hottest stallion of his type in the land. Yes? No? Well, okay, does it help if we add that he also put together the ownership of a record-breaking mare that banked $5.5 million on the track?

Enough already. Because if you haven't identified David Reid by now, that will only be because you aren't making the sideways step from our own business to the world of Standardbreds.

Somehow, though both call for many common attributes, there tends to be relatively little crossover. But the energies driving such a remarkable resume have in recent years tipped Reid over the confines of one environment to embrace parallel challenges, albeit on a milder scale, in the other. And while he resists any delusion that he might replicate the game-changing impact he has had on harness racing, he certainly showed a pretty immediate touch with Thoroughbreds.

Indeed, one of the earliest investments of the Ice Wine Stable he established with another major Standardbred force, Frank Antonacci, has since become one of the most upwardly mobile Thoroughbred stallions in Europe. No Nay Never, who entered Reid's life as a Scat Daddy yearling found by Wesley Ward in 2012, has rapidly catapulted his fee at Coolmore from €17,500 to €175,000.

The Preferred Equine sales agency Reid founded with the late Geoff Stein in 1989 has meanwhile developed a Thoroughbred division; while besides a customary handful with Ward, Reid and Antonacci have another eight or nine with the latter's son Philip, who had made a promising start to his Thoroughbred training career over the past two years.

If it's hard to condense the sheer breadth of Reid's engagement, then there's no mistaking the twin columns supporting it. Because you can only try all this stuff with an exceptionally questing, an energetic nature; and you could only pull it off–most obviously in simultaneously operating the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale ($65.3 million trade this fall, at an average $73,690) and its premier consignment (145 head sold for $11.3 million)–by having the absolute trust of fellow horsemen.

“I do love action,” Reid acknowledges. “We breed, we race, we trade. If we can go somewhere and try to be successful, we're going to try it. On the other hand, we don't like to fail. I just always want to do things on the up and up. Integrity's number one. But yes, for sure: I do love the sales, I love marketplaces. It is a unique situation, where you can be a sales manager, at a major sale, and a consigner at the same sale, but I also consign at all the other sales. And I've been able to handle those two positions within our industry with no problems whatsoever, for nearly 30 years.”

As so often, elite achievement turns out to be founded in a stubborn humility. Recalling the quarter-hour or so Reid and Ward spent with the Queen of England in the royal box, after No Nay Never won the G2 Coventry S. at Ascot, he says: “Well, listen, I'm a country boy. I grew up on a farm, and never would have dreamed to have that opportunity. You kind of pinch yourself. I must say that Wesley and Her Majesty did most of the talking!”

The point is, this modesty is seamless with the way he describes the evolution of a portfolio that feels pretty unique in the wide world of horsemanship.

“Listen, education wasn't my strong suit,” he says with a shrug. “So I'm probably more of a trial-and-error type of guy. Or the old thing of imitation being the best form of flattery. So I watch successful people, and people who are less successful, and just try to figure out what they might be doing right or wrong. But challenges every day are good. I do have a lot on the go, a lot of irons in the fire. But I have good staff, a good team, so I have been really blessed with that as well.”

So far as Thoroughbreds are concerned, he certainly associated himself with an exemplary model from the outset: initially when introduced to Ward one day at Saratoga, just down the road from the dairy farm where Reid was raised; and in turn when paired with the Coolmore partners in No Nay Never.

“Meeting Wesley is really how we got the ball rolling in the Thoroughbred business,” Reid says. “We'd had horses with him a couple of years when he called me up from Keeneland and said, 'Listen, there's a horse here might be falling through the cracks. He just has a little maturity issue, but that's no problem for me, I can back off him.' Everyone has success stories after the fact. But I can sit there in church on a Sunday morning and tell you Wesley Ward was always a believer in that horse, right from the hammer. And the early training reports were fabulous, he was already telling me in February how talented the horse was.”

So it was that a failed pinhook–No Nay Never had slipped from $170,000 in the same ring as a weanling to $95,000 at the September Sale–actually proved precocious enough to make a trademark Ward debut at the Keeneland April meet, win at Royal Ascot and then return across the water to win a Group 1 in France.

“And the whole time we understood that [Coolmore] was obviously an outstanding organization from A to Z,” Reid stresses. “Truthfully, they've been great partners on all levels. There's nobody, in my opinion, that knows the trading and breeding of horses better. They have a size and scope that's fascinating to me. Obviously, Mr. Magnier believed in Scat Daddy for a long time, the whole team has bought into it, and it's been outstanding for all involved.”

But even partnership with the best in the Thoroughbred business couldn't supplant Stein as the most precious influence on Reid's career. Their paths first crossed when Reid took a job after college on a Standardbred farm near Saratoga, where a bunch of horses incautiously leveraged to a bank were sent for a repossession dispersal. A couple of appraisers were sent up from New York–and one of them turned out to be Stein. They jumped into the back of a pickup together and hit it off so well that eventually they would combine their talents, downstate in Westchester, for 25 years until Stein's abrupt and premature loss in 2012.

“We built it up together, Geoff and myself,” Reid explains. “Started small, very small. But part of the reason why we're where we are today, in my opinion, is that at the time you couldn't feed two families just being an agent. We had to diversify. So you start buying mares, syndicating stallions, a little bit of everything. And that way you just increase your knowledge, as you go along, tenfold.”

One of the things that really got them rolling was a deal put together for the emerging Moni Maker in 1995.

“I'd like to think she's known all through the horse world, having retired as [then] the richest female of all time, regardless of breed,” Reid notes. “She had an international career, raced here at two and three and then she went to Europe from four through seven. So she kick-started us a little bit.”

From this side of the fence, however, what's most interesting is Reid's curiosity for fresh perspectives as such a seasoned achiever on the other.

“In the Standardbred industry, the market is a little more regional,” Reid reflects. “We really have no Asian market, for instance, no California market per se. Whereas the global market of the Thoroughbred industry is fascinating. Because within that, you have more turf racing in Europe, dirt racing here, sprint racing Down Under. That's very intriguing and makes a diversified market, which obviously creates interest from all over the world. I would certainly say I've enriched my knowledge greatly by participating in the Thoroughbred market, and that it has helped me manage my Standardbred one better.”

Not that each industry will invariably absorb innovations from the other. Staging the first Standardbred 2-year-old sale, for instance, proved a limited success; it was from the Standardbred registry, equally, that the Thoroughbred community borrowed and then renounced a proposed stallion cap of 140 mares.

So far as the latter is concerned, the most obvious divergence between the breeds is artificial insemination, which heightened Standardbreds' exposure in genetic diversity. But nor, it turned out, was like being compared with like in experimenting with a 2-year-old sale: even the most precocious Standardbred won't master its vocation in presentable fashion before June at the earliest.

“They train down in a more structured way, don't have the ability to go race speed naturally,” Reid explains. “They have to learn the gait; and they have to learn their endurance. From December all the way through June, they're dropping X seconds every month. So it's a whole progression. We tried it, and I'm not saying we won't revisit it: we actually had some success with horses that went on and did well. But it was more difficult because of those differences, and now we have mixed sales in July and August that allow the horses to get there and go on and race.”

A more successful emulation has been online trading, Reid having observed how necessity became the mother of invention for many bloodstock auctions during the pandemic. In February, he opened an online portal that has been renewing as often as every two weeks. One dynamic he observed, towards the end of the summer, was the trading out of stock to fund the next cycle at the fall yearling sales.

“Obviously we've seen the success that they had down in Australia and New Zealand with the online market,” Reid remarks. “I watch Fasig-Tipton and Keeneland doing their onlines, and we follow Tattersalls and Arqana from afar. So that's another thing we bit off, in 2022, that adds to the craziness! But in fairness, we've been very satisfied. With horses that race on a much more frequent basis [than Thoroughbreds], we're finding success marketing online through our networking connections and clientele.

“I'm still a huge believer in the live market and live auctions. Probably a certain segment of the bloodstock industry will always be that way. But we've found that fluidity in the marketplace allows owners to create their own calendar for turning over their assets.”

For all his restless, imaginative endeavor, Reid is not trying to reinvent the wheel. He stresses the modesty of his Thoroughbred imprint–measurable in dozens, as against 1,000-plus Standardbreds processed by his agency every year–and the simple pragmatism of any adaptations learned.

“We've done a little bit of everything,” he says. “We've done 2-year sales, with other consigners; we've consigned yearlings ourselves up in Saratoga and Kentucky. But listen, it's only ever been on a small-time basis. There's a lot of knowledgeable people in the Thoroughbred game. And it's a deep marketplace. When we're marketing [Standardbred] yearlings, in our industry for the most part it's the trainers doing the physical inspection and selection. Whereas the Thoroughbred market is very agent-driven.”

But then the Thoroughbred itself, after all, is a different beast. Standardbreds soak up more racing–Moni Maker won 19 of 20 starts as a 3-year-old–and are built to do so.

“I think they're hardier, for sure, with more bone,” Reid says. “But more importantly, regardless of the gait [i.e. trotter or pacer], they always have two hooves on the ground at one time. I think that is probably a big factor [in their soundness]. Also Thoroughbreds, in the gate, go from zero to 40 in a matter of seconds. Whereas for Standardbreds it's mostly mobile starts.”

And a different stamp of horse can produce a different horseman, too.

“I think so, yeah, I'm probably a different bloodstock evaluator, in that I would prefer to see horses off the shank and in the field,” Reid remarks. “That's just my upbringing. It's probably not a popular trait, especially in Thoroughbreds, but maybe it's sometimes a bit of an edge or niche.”

Exploring the Thoroughbred world, for Reid, has partly been a natural leakage of curiosity and partly sheer circumstance. Since 2005, for instance, the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale has been renting Fasig-Tipton's facility and everyone, from Boyd Browning to the grooms showing the stock, encouraged Reid that his skills were surely somewhat transferable.

Now there has been fresh impetus from Philip Antonacci, a Flying Start graduate who has sampled the methods of elite Thoroughbred trainers all round the world. Reid's association with the Antonaccis goes back to the Moni Maker days. The family has long operated a prominent Standardbred nursery, Lindy Farms in Connecticut, while Frank is also an owner of the Red Mile harness track in Lexington. But Philip's “defection” to Thoroughbreds has already yielded a Grade II podium with Fauci (Malibu Moon), while he has had two winners from four starters at the current Aqueduct meet.

“Frank is supporting his son and it's beautiful to see,” Reid says with enthusiasm. “Frank and his brother Jerry have been incredibly successful building up their businesses up in the Northeast, and they take it to the next level whenever they can. They're very hard-working, frugal people who have been in the business generationally.

“I've known Phillip right from birth. So it all evolves, just keeps going. I know that I wouldn't be where I am today without my Standardbred industry clients having been so very loyal. Just as my staff, my friends, my colleagues are all a huge part of my success. And truthfully, that's probably the main reason why people succeed or fail: your relationships, within your organization and externally.”

Sure enough, that's exactly how he has cultivated the Thoroughbred dimension to his career.

“In the last six or seven years, we definitely are more involved,” Reid says. “We have more mares, we have shares, we breed. But there's a lot of segments in this business where you have to be well capitalized, you have to be well networked. And networking takes a long time. But I think we're doing well. I guess longevity is worth something: we've been around a long time, and hope to be around for a long time to come.”

Needless to say, the core Standardbred operation never stands still. Reid's latest excitement is managing a meteoric young stallion, Walner, a share having recently been auctioned for $750,000.

“Obviously we've been very successful in the Standardbred business, and that's still our primary focus,” he reiterates. “But you have to be conscious that things are always changing, always moving. Right now, we have a pulse on all aspects of the Standardbred industry. The Thoroughbred business, huge as it is, it's harder to get a global pulse on it. The two are interconnected at some level, but still vastly different.

“I wouldn't call their different ways of doing things right or wrong, just different. We all think we're great judges of a horse. But we've all seen horses that we don't judge fair go on to do superior things; and the opposite, where you think something is going to be spectacular and it's disappointing. So is it the training method? Is it the environment? Is it the personalities involved? Is it the micromanagement?”

All he knows is that two factors are essential to every horse, of any breed: luck, and aspiration.

“There's always been a Standardbred marketplace, but I would like to think that we've raised a level of professionalism in that space in the last 30 years,” Reid says. “But it doesn't matter what you do, you have to be lucky. I'm a big believer that stars line up for a reason. But I'm 57, and still wake up every morning, very eager to learn, to try different things and continue to grow. And I hope I never lose that inspiration, because when that day comes, I don't know what I'm going to do.”

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“On behalf of our organization, I would like to sincerely thank Jessica for her many contributions to our business, the horse racing industry, Woodbine Mohawk Park, and both our Standardbred and Thoroughbred Racing programs,” Woodbine's Jim Lawson said in the release.

Woodbine Entertainment CCO Michael Copeland will assume the role of senior leader of Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing.

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Dr. Ingunn Risnes Hellings and a research team looked at fatalities recorded by the Norwegian and Swedish Trotting Associations from Jan. 1, 2014, to Dec. 31, 2019; 48 horses died during this period—38 Standardbreds and 10 Norwegian-Swedish Coldblooded Trotters. The scientists looked at breed, age, sex, frequency of starts, time of year, and racing distance in an attempt to identify risk factors. They also noted whether the horse competed in a trotting race under saddle or in harness.

Fatalities were included in the study if the horse was euthanized after becoming injured immediately before the race, during the race, or within an hour of racing.

The researchers found that 14.5 percent of fatalities were from traumatic or orthopedic injuries, while the rest were considered “sudden athletic death.” This is a distinct difference from the primary cause of racetrack fatalities in Thoroughbred racehorses, in which most suffer catastrophic orthopedic injuries. Sudden athletic death in Thoroughbreds occurs at a rate of between 9 and 19 percent.

The team also found:

• A higher number of starts in the last 30 days increased risk of sudden death
• 30 horses died of acute circulatory collapse due to cardiac or pulmonary failure
• 10 horses died from hemorrhaging after blood vessel rupture
• Seven of the 48 study horses were euthanized because of catastrophic injury
• 70 percent of the 40 horses in the sudden athletic death category had marked bleeding in the lungs
• The rate of sudden athletic death was similar between both breeds

The scientists determined that the rate of catastrophic injury fatalities was comparatively low and that suspected or confirmed cardiopulmonary causes of death were similar to previous studies. They note that additional investigation into the pathologies causing the cardiopulmonary events is warranted.

Read the full study here.

Read more at HorseTalk.

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Vicky Stoudenmire had been nursing the 16-year-old “Yankey” back to health at her farm in Selma, the animal reportedly recovering from a broken hip. Sherriff Mike Granthum said a 17-year-old broke onto Stoudenmire's property and stole the horse, and was later seen on a social media video racing the horse against a fast-moving vehicle.

Stoudenmire said Yankey was ridden for three days until he could no longer stand.

According to Sherriff Granthum, the 17-year-old and his 23-year-old friend Terrius Smith then loaded Yankey onto a trailer and dumped him in a creek, where the horse drowned.

Both have been charged with aggravated animal cruelty, and the 17-year-old has also been charged with second-degree theft of property.

Read more at WFSA12 News.

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Researchers examined the mouths of 261 trotters, including 151 Standardbreds, 78 Finnhorses (a native lightweight draft), and 32 ponies, for bruises and wounds immediately following a race. They looked at specific bit-contact areas: the inner and outer corners of the lips, bars of the lower jaw, cheek tissue near the second premolar tooth, tongue, and roof of the mouth.

The researchers then collected information about the type of bit used for each horse, making special note of the thickness and composition of the mouthpiece. Details of other equipment were taken, when applicable, including the use of an overcheck, jaw strap, or tongue-tie. Past racing history was mined from a reliable online database.

Injuries were observed in 84 percent of the horses in the study, regardless of the type of bit worn, and half of those were classified as moderate or severe. Five horses (2 percent) had visual blood outside of the mouth from the wounds.

Compared with horses wearing a single-jointed, half-cheek snaffle, trotters that wore a Crescendo bit, Mullen-mouth regulator bit, or a straight plastic bit had a greater likelihood of moderate or severe injury to the mouth. Bar lesions were more common in horses outfitted with unjointed bits. Other tack and race performance did not factor into risk for oral lesions, according to the researchers.

“While this study serves to highlight the physical injuries caused by bits among specific high-performance horses, it is important to note that lesions may be severe enough to hinder comfortable chewing of forages, especially if hay or chaff is stemmy,” said Catherine Whitehouse, a nutritionist with Kentucky Equine Research. This in turn could affect forage consumption, leading to diminished body condition, onset of gastric ulcers, and loss of performance.

Further, mouth pain can be a source of worry or stress for horses, even while resting. “Racehorses have a high incidence of gastric ulceration, the effects of which can be assuaged by conscientious management, which may include the use of research-proven digestive supplements,” Whitehouse said.

^*Tuomola, K., N. Mäki-Kihniä, A. Valros, and A. Mykkänen. 2021. Risk factors for bit-related lesions in Finnish trotting horses. Equine Veterinary Journal 53:1132-1140.

Read more here.

Reprinted courtesy of Kentucky Equine Research. Visit ker.com for the latest in equine nutrition and management, and subscribe to Equinews to receive these articles directly.

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Because the fetlock joint must withstand incredible forces, high-performance horses, including Thoroughbred and Standardbred racehorses, often sustain injuries at this site. The joint connects the long and short pastern bones, known also as the first and second phalanx.

A recent study of sound Standardbred foals, all trotting-bred, characterized how the long pastern bone adapts to changing loads during growth through the use of regular computed tomography (CT) scans during the first year of life. In addition to measuring strength and composition changes in the bone, researchers calculated strain energy density, a biomechanical metric of potential bone remodeling.²

Growth-related changes in mineral density and bone area at various bone points (distal epiphysis, mid-diaphysis, and proximal epiphysis) were assessed. These three points were further divided into four functional quadrants (dorsal, medial, lateral, palmar). Mineral density and bone area uniformly increased in the diaphysis and a portion of the proximal epiphysis, the medial quadrant, but not in the fracture-prone lateral quadrant. Strain energy density was constant during growth, indicating bone adaptation to standing quietly, the primary activity of Standardbred foals, according to prior observation by researchers, which revealed that foals between the ages of two and five months spent 80 percent of their time at a standstill.

In sum, “the work provides a baseline longitudinal characterization of normal remodeling of the equine forelimb first phalanx during the first year of life and its effect of strain energy density,” the researchers explained. “This is an essential prerequisite to making evidence-based recommendations for training regimens that may encourage bone growth in areas prone to fracture during development. A properly prepared musculoskeletal system may lead to fewer fractures, thus reducing the unnecessary wastage of equine athletes.”

In addition to exercise, proper nutrition of the mare throughout gestation and of the foal during all growth phases fosters future soundness. “Nutritional management of young horses starts with an appropriate, good-quality forage. Fortified concentrates can then be fed to meet energy, mineral, and vitamin shortfalls,” said Catherine Whitehouse, M.S., a nutrition advisor at Kentucky Equine Research.

“Aside from hay and concentrates, supplements designed to increase bone health can be used to support young athletes. Triacton, a supplemented formulated by Kentucky Equine Research, contains a novel source of calcium and an array of bone-building nutrients designed to increase bone density, with the ultimate goal of promoting long-term soundness,” she explained. “Research in weanlings, for example, showed that Triacton had a positive effect on density of the cannon bone.”

¹Firth, E.C., C.W. Rogers, P.R. van Weeren, A. Barneveld, C.W. McIlwraith, C.E. Kawcak, A.E. Goodship, and R.K.W. Smith. 2011. Mild exercise early in life produces changes in bone size and strength but not density in proximal phalangeal, third metacarpal and third carpal bones of foals. Veterinary Journal 190:383-389.

 ²Moshage, S.G., A.M. McCoy, J.D. Polk, and M.E. Kersh. 2019. Temporal and spatial changes in bone accrual, density, and strain energy density in growing foals. Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials 103.

Article reprinted courtesy of Kentucky Equine Research (KER). Visit equinews.com for the latest in equine nutrition and management, and subscribe to The Weekly Feed to receive these articles directly (equinews.com/newsletters).   

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The Meadowlands, Tioga and Vernon Downs and Jeff Gural have been named in a lawsuit initiated by a number of Standardbred owners who allege to have been excluded from racing at the three tracks as a result of their patronage of trainer Rene Allard.

Allard was among more than 30 racing related individuals indicted and arrested in March 2020 by the United States Department of Justice for offenses relating to the systematic and covert administration of illegal performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) to racehorses. He was later included in a superseding indictment filed in federal court in December 2020. The charges remain pending.

The plaintiffs named are Kapildeo Singh, Lawrence Dumain, Ira and Brian Wallach, Yves Sarrazin, Erlin Hill, Bruce Soulsby and Alan Weisenberg, who in their complaint admit that they have an interest in horses stabled by Allard in Florida over the winter of 2020-2021. The complaint alleges that the plaintiffs were the victims of a conspiracy by Gural to exclude their horses from racing at the three tracks to gain a “competitive advantage.”

“It's a little discouraging that when you're trying to clean up the drug problem, we now have to hire an expensive lawyer to defend us against this lawsuit, which essentially calls me dishonest,” said Meadowlands President Jeff Gural. “Worse yet, we get no cooperation from the horsemen who love to complain about the drugs but don't lift a finger to help us catch the perpetrators. The lawsuit is without merit. We will vigorously defend against these allegations and look forward to being vindicated in court.”

According to ustrottingnews.com, the complain was filed on Aug. 23 in the U.S. District Court Northern District of New York. An initial conference before Magistrate Judge Miroslav Lovric has been set for Nov. 24, 2021 at 10 a.m. via teleconference.

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Army Ranger Paul Martinez (ret.) and world-class harness trainer Robbie Siegelman will be managing the six week driving program at Warrior Ranch this summer.

Staff Sergeant Martinez is the author of “When the Killer Man Comes,” and has been supporting equine activities since he retired in 2014.

Robbie Siegelman has been a Standardbred trainer since 1982 and owned and operated Siegelman Stables for nearly 40 years.

This once in a lifetime experience will give five veterans a chance to learn how to care for horses, how to apply the racing tack and harness and also learn how to drive them on the track.

“As soon as Robbie Siegelman reached out I wanted to sponsor this program,” said Meadowlands Racetrack COO & GM Jason Settlemoir. “It is important to support our veterans and thank them for all they have done for us.”

At the conclusion of the program the participants will have a “Night at the Races” at the Meadowlands Racetrack and have the chance to lead some post parades during the evening.

“We have received generous support from the Meadowlands to begin the program for our first group of veterans,” said Eileen Shanahan, President and Founder of Warrior Ranch Foundation. “We are seeking further support to fund the horses and their care.”

Those looking to donate can visit Donate-original (warriorranchfoundation.org)

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