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OTTB Kid Blast Enjoying New ‘Challenges’ At Therapeutic Horses Of Saratoga

In 2014, a bay gelding named Kid Blast created lasting memories for owner Parting Glass Racing, winning or finishing on the board in all eight of his starts at New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) tracks. Now, at the age of 13, Kid Blast is still bringing joy to those around him as a therapy horse just five miles from Saratoga Race Course at Therapeutic Horses of Saratoga.

Trained by Bruce Levine during his racing days, the son of Posse made 26 career starts throughout his five seasons of racing, compiling a record of 5-4-7 with earnings of $151,576. Upon retirement from racing, “Kid”, as he is affectionately known, became a track pony at NYRA, his friendly and easy-going personality making him a good candidate for assisting racehorses on the track.

When a back injury forced his retirement from pony work, Lisa Molloy's Re-Run Thoroughbred Retirement took in the gelding and provided him with a place to rehabilitate.

Tom Gallo, managing partner of Parting Glass Racing and now Dream Maker Racing, reached out to Therapeutic Horses of Saratoga (THS) after Kid Blast retired from pony work, suggesting the gelding's experience would allow him to excel as a therapy horse.

“Kid's personality was just perfect,” said Laura LaRue, the Director of Equine Care at Therapeutic Horses of Saratoga. “We got him in 2019 and he's got a big brother kind of personality. He flowed right into his role here and just wants to please everyone.”

A Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance (TAA) accredited not-for-profit organization, Therapeutic Horses of Saratoga was founded in 2018 with the mission of retraining retired thoroughbreds and standardbreds to become therapy horses for clients in partnership with ECS Psychological Services in Saratoga Springs.

Patients are taught equine husbandry at the organization's Lake Avenue farm, learning to problem solve and work through their emotions.

“Our clients typically spend time getting to know the horses on their first few visits,” LaRue said. “We'll ask them to catch and bring us a horse from the field and provide them with a halter and lead rope, but most do not know what those are or how to use them. Sometimes they will just entice them over with a piece of hay. This helps our patients learn how to figure things out for themselves and then down the road, we can have them do other things like lead the horses through obstacle courses. The horses challenge them to work through it.”

Kid Blast has proved popular on the farm, a gentle giant who can work in a variety of the program's activities.

“Kid does everything because he's amazing,” said LaRue “He's a very big, stoic and mellow horse and the herd leader in his paddock. Patients will spend time with him and groom him, take him for walks, and go through the obstacle courses. We made this thing we call the car wash. It's made of pool noodles and the goal is for the clients to guide the horses through it while the noodles brush up against them. Kid Blast has done it a million times and sometimes plants his feet and challenges them to make it through.

“We also have the clients build a corral where they use things like traffic cones and hula hoops to create a pen to lead the horse into,” LaRue added. “There's a lot of metaphors in it.”

As THS continues to see success in their programs, LaRue credits the emotional capacity of horses as the reason equine therapy can provide another level of support for patients along with traditional therapies.

“The horses are very good at reading emotions and are reactive in a way that is both challenging and comforting,” LaRue said. “They have a very good balance of what the client needs. They can do all this in a way that humans can't. We are setting the experience up but it's the horses who are doing all of the mental and emotional work.”

With many success stories to reflect on in the organization's three years, LaRue fondly recalled her favorite moment shared between Kid Blast and one of their clients.

“We had someone who was saying they were fine when they weren't, and in therapy it's kind of hard to turn that off sometimes,” LaRue said. “They were trying to place a halter on another horse and the horse kept walking away. The client was getting frustrated and you could tell that they were feeling like they wanted to give up. Kid walked up from behind and gave them a nudge on their back and placed his face in the halter for them. He reaches out when you need it. He takes good care of everyone.”

Now in his third career, Kid Blast is exemplary of the wide array of new jobs available to racehorses when their days on the track are over. LaRue emphasized that both thoroughbred and standardbred racehorses are favorable to work with in new settings because of how they are handled on the racetrack.

“Racehorses are exposed to things like the starting gate, noise, and crowds and they get used to it pretty quickly,” said LaRue. “Here on the farm, they aren't nervous around tractors or a tarp flapping around in the breeze. All of their exposure on the track made it a lot easier for them to transition here. It makes a big difference.”

NYRA and its horsemen are committed supporters of the TAA, which accredits, inspects, and awards grants to approved aftercare organizations using industry-wide funding.

Every owner competing at NYRA racetracks donates $10 per start to the TAA, helping to fund aftercare organizations that provide homes for retired racehorses. New York's horsemen also donate 1.5 percent of the purchase price of every horse claimed at a NYRA track to TAA and the New York
Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association's TAKE THE LEAD (TTL) program, which provides preliminary vet exams and treatment, as well as costs related to transportation and rehabilitation or retraining.

“The conversations have grown about aftercare over the last few years which is great,” said LaRue. “NYRA has a day at the races where they bring horses in from the TAA and educate fans to show them options for the racehorses after their careers. It's really important to continue to have the aftercare conversation and we are excited to be a part of it.”

For more information on Therapeutic Horses of Saratoga, visit https://thsaratoga.org/.

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For New York Aftercare Organizations, The Success Stories Keep On Coming

For Stacie Clark Rogers of the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance (TAA), there are several ways to measure progress in aftercare.

One is concrete: following up the TAA's banner 2021 by continuing to pursue the organization's proven, long-range strategy in 2022 of raising funds for TAA-accredited aftercare facilities – all geared to re-homing retired racehorses.

The other is more personal, best measured by the tales of the racehorses adopted and how they're thriving in their new careers. For Clark Rogers, the industry's “success stories” are what she and the others in the aftercare community relish most of all.

“Fundraising will continue to be our primary focus because the assistance goes directly to the organizations now caring for the horses,” said Clark Rogers, the TAA's operations consultant. “But we love hearing the follow-up stories about the horses adopted and how they're doing. In New York, that means building on a number of successes in what was a great 2021.”

The TAA awarded a record $3.7 million in grants in 2021 to 82 of its accredited aftercare organizations comprising approximately 180 facilities in North America, including 10 in New York State.

Clark estimates that since the TAA's inception it has affected approximately 13,700 horses, a number that should grow by more than 3,500 in 2022, which is about the average of the last several years.

Among the organization's highlights in 2021 was the inaugural TAA Day in August at Saratoga Race Course, which generated nationwide attention to the importance and benefits of thoroughbred aftercare. The two-day event on Whitney Weekend raised funds for various TAA-affiliated organizations, and provided significant exposure to aftercare at one of the country's most prestigious and closely followed meets.

“NYRA and the New York horsemen have been great supporters of TAA since our inception (in 2012), but TAA Day at Saratoga was amazing,” said Clark Rogers. “For us, it was a validation that aftercare is an integral part of our industry – and one that embraces the whole diverse racing community. That it happened at Saratoga, with such a large fan base and all the media coverage, was huge.”

Backing the TAA in its pursuit of industry-wide funding is the steadfast year-round support of NYRA and its horsemen. Every owner competing at NYRA racetracks donates $10 per start to the TAA, which funds the aftercare organizations that provide homes for retired racehorses.

New York's horsemen also donate 1.5 percent of the purchase price of every horse claimed at a NYRA track to TAA and the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association's Take the Lead program, which provides preliminary vet exams and treatment, as well as costs related to transportation, rehabilitation or retraining. The recently-concluded Big A fall meet saw 47 total claims made for a total of more than $1.34 million, generating in excess of $20,000 for aftercare.

Meanwhile, the hard work of accrediting more facilities and re-homing retired racehorses continues. Among the organizations achieving TAA accreditation in 2021 was Therapeutic Horses of Saratoga or THS, which specializes in equine assisted therapy and rescues and retrains retired racehorses for hands-on work with individuals in need. Clark Rogers is soon headed to Spokane, Wash., where she plans to meet with officials of a prison about setting up an aftercare program that uses horses to help rehabilitate inmates.

Small wonder that rehoming retired racehorses is an everyday task involving a never-ending number of details for New York-based trainer Rick Schosberg, who is on the TAA board and also runs the Take The Lead retirement program.

Schosberg said the Take The Lead program is “rapidly approaching” its 900th horse placed thorough the program, a number it should hit in 2022.

“At the moment, I have 12 horses who are transitioning off the track,” Schosberg said. “At any time of the week, we have anywhere from five to 12 horses on our list in different phases of transition. We are very busy and have horses leaving for retirement all the time.”

Take The Lead's goal with each horse is to create a profile and then network with potential aftercare facilities. To do so, the organization gathers information and medical records and ensures that a vet provide a thorough evaluation of each horse for soundness or any lingering injuries. Key is the need to research and find those horses the best fit and career, whether it's show jumping, dressage, part of a rehabilitation program or as a companion, turned out on the family farm.

Working to a retired racehorse's advantage is what Schosberg called “an innate ability to learn new things.”

“[From knowing] the starting gate, the big track, the little track and jogging the right way and the wrong way, they're already processed for that,” Schosberg said.

To make it work, Schosberg, Take The Lead's executive director, Andy Belfiore, and aftercare coordinator, Kristin Mason, hold weekly conference calls with an eye to where the horses in transition stand. No detail is too small, from evaluating a thoroughbred's quirks and habits to bringing in a vet for an exam to checking on van schedules to see if there are any slots on an upcoming trip to Saratoga or Florida in which a transitioning horse might catch a ride to its new home.

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“All in all, it's a busy week and there are times when we're inundated [with aftercare work],” said Schosberg. “The funny thing is that with modern technology, there are a lack of parameters, and I'll get a call about a horse at 7 p.m. or 4 a.m. I tend to do a lot of my aftercare work before training – that's between 3:30 a.m. to 5 a.m. when I'm headed to the barn. A lot of the answers to my questions come back in 'now time,' so I have them by the time training is finished. Things can move along pretty quickly.”

Schosberg added that the commitment to aftercare from owners, NYTHA, NYRA and other parts of the industry in New York, combined with the best racing in the country, make New York “better than any other jurisdiction” when it comes to aftercare.

“Because New York has the best racing, it should have the best aftercare facilities – and it does.” he said. “It's why they [aftercare organizations] want to be here and there are several great ones from ReRun to Akindale Thoroughbred Rescue and others.”

There are success stories just about everywhere you look. In 2021, ReRun in East Greenbush, N.Y. arranged the adoption of between 90 and 110 retired thoroughbreds, all but about 10 of which are former NYRA horses, according to its executive director Lisa Molloy.

“We work primarily with NYRA because hands down, they're the best racehorses,” said Molloy. “That makes us about as 'New York' as it gets.”

Among the recent adoptees at ReRun was the New York-bred Ragnar Lothbrok. Trained by Gary Gullo, the dark bay ran at all three NYRA tracks, but was retired after five races due to injury. Adopted in January 2020 by the Fuller family of Poultney, Vermont, the dark bay now competes in eventing and dressage with Tayah Fuller, a 15-year-old freshman at Poultney High School.

In October, Ragnar Lothbrok who the family now calls Zyn, and Fuller came in third for show jumping and eventing at the Retired Racehorse Project in Lexington, Kentucky.

The Fullers also have two other horses on their farm. In November, the family adopted another NYRA veteran, the Kentucky-bred Recidivist who was trained by Kelly Breen. It's Tayah's responsibility to care for all of them.

“We couldn't possibly have received a better match than Zyn,” said Rommy Fuller-Young, Tayah's mother. “He's athletic, intelligent and has the best temperament. He's really the perfect fit.”

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Medal Count Pensioned From Stud Duty, Offered For Adoption At New Vocations

The 10-year-old Medal Count has been pensioned from stud duty and now appears on the website of Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance-accredited rehoming group New Vocations. The now-gelded son of Dynaformer earned just shy of half a million dollars on the racetrack, and was retired to stand at Spendthrift Farm in 2016. He has stood the past two seasons in Ohio at Mapleton Thoroughbred Farm.

Medal Count's oldest foals are 4-year-olds of 2021. His leading earner is the Arkansas-bred filly Hissy Missy, a winner in two of her 13 career starts for earnings of $175,532.

His advertisement on the New Vocations website reads: “Of a gold standard indeed, Medal Count is ready for his next career in his forever home! This well-traveled gelding earned nearly half a million dollars during his successful racing career, which included a Grade 3 stakes win and finishing in the money in several Grade 1 and Grade 2 stakes, including the Belmont Stakes (G1)! He stood at stud for several years before being gelded and entering our program to start his third career.

“One of Medal Count's first transitions in our program was figuring out turnout with a buddy! He's done well with this task and goes out during the day with our resident babysitter, Ranger. He loves to stretch his legs and enjoys some snacking, but he's overall quite relaxed and content outside.

“Around the barn, you can often find Medal Count sticking his head out of his stall, taking in all the action, or resting quietly. He can be shy and aloof at first, but he is happy to get one-on-one time when he gets individualized attention. Medal Count has spent some time getting used to new environments and building his confidence with us; he can be a bit of a cowardly lion at times!

“Under saddle, Medal Count is a bit nervous as he is figuring out his new job in the ring. We see loads of potential in him (check out his free lunge video!), but he is just working on relaxing under saddle at the moment. He will do best with an advanced rider who is confident and can guide Medal Count through the process as he learns to relax and get back into shape with his next career.”

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Maryland Tracks To Institute Aftercare Funding Initiative January 1

The Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association Board of Directors recently approved an initiative designed to increase funding for the Beyond The Wire aftercare program.

Effective Jan. 1, 2022, pending review from the Maryland Racing Commission, there will be an assessment of 1.5 percent on the price of a claimed horse at Maryland racetracks. For example, the new owner or ownership group that claims a horse for $10,000 would pay a $150 assessment that would be used to support racehorses accepted by Beyond The Wire.

The program is similar to one in New York, where in 2019 the New York THA and New York Racing Association instituted a mandatory 1.5 percent aftercare assessment on claimed horses. The Maryland program will be “opt out,” meaning the 1.5 percent assessment will be charged unless an owner or ownership group signs an opt-out form that will be available in the MTHA office in the Laurel Park grandstand.

In a related matter, Beyond The Wire is offering opportunities to sponsor a retired racehorse for the holiday season and beyond. Occasionally, horses have medical problems or even more rare, behavioral problems, that make it very difficult for them to be adopted. Sometimes, it is in the best interest of the horse to live out their days at one of our Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance-accredited facilities.

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If you love horses, have a connection to a particular horse, love racing, are an animal lover or just want to do something that makes you feel good, please consider “sponsoring” one of our beautiful Thoroughbreds this holiday season. The list of sponsor horses can be found here. Please include the name of the horse with your PayPal donation at the top of the PayPal page.

Current sponsor opportunities include hay for a week ($25), shoes for a month ($125), X-rays for a checkup ($250), one month of board ($300), or any other amount.