At 24, The Deputy Pulled From Bail Pen By Racetrack Connections

Irish-bred The Deputy, trained by Jenine Sahadi for Team Valor and Gary Barber to win the $1-million Santa Anita Derby in 2000 and second choice in the Kentucky Derby, is now safely ensconced in Texas after some maneuvering to rescue him from a “kill pen” on a feedlot about an hour north of Dallas week before last.

When intrepid horse lovers used their Internet monitoring skills to learn that the now 24-year-old stallion had been bought cheaply at a sale in Iowa and transported to the feedlot in Texas, word spread fast and Team Valor CEO Barry Irwin quickly managed to buy him on behalf of his longtime partner Barber and ex-trainer Sahadi.

Utilizing networking through the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, the old connections contacted TAA activist Donna Keen, who was able to rapidly pick up and move The Deputy to her TAA-approved Remember Me Rescue.

“We decided to have Donna quarantine The Deputy for a while, do some diagnostic work including bloods and a fecal and not reveal anything about the rescue until we were certain that he was healthy, as Donna warned us that horses from feedlots can contract diseases quite readily,” Irwin said.

“When the tests all came back negative today and the vet- check proved unremarkable, we decided it was time to tell the story, not to portray ourselves as heroes, but to put an end to the salacious, untrue and unfounded tales that had been circulating online. We want to thank those horse lovers who helped us in our endeavors.”

Donna Keen (left) said “We are thrilled to have been able to help the original connections and to be able to take care of the horse and share him with visitors to our rescue. He is, as could be expected, a bit underweight at this time, but when he fills back up and once again looks the part we look forward to showing him off here in Texas. We are very honored and proud to have been selected as his forever home.”

The Deputy, bought by Team Valor and Barber after he won a maiden race in England at two, enjoyed a brief but meteoric rise to stardom in the winter of his 3-year-old season at Santa Anita, where the dark-coated colt rattled off victories in the listed Hill Rise Stakes, Grade 2 Santa Catalina Stakes (defeating subsequent Breeders' Cup Turf Mile hero War Chant) and the G1 Santa Anita Derby, while running second in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes to the Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus.

As the first starter for a female trainer in the 2000 Kentucky Derby, he was second choice, but bowed a tendon in the race and never ran again.

Barber, who won the Preakness with War of Will, said “I have always had a soft spot in my heart for The Deputy. He was my first Grade 1 winner.”

“He was the easiest horse to be around. All class. He meant a lot to me and my barn,” said Sahadi.

The son of Petardia was originally syndicated to stand at Margaux Farm in Midway, Ky., after which he did stints at farms in Michigan and Iowa.

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The Deputy Rescued from TX Kill Pen

The Deputy (Ire) (Petardia {GB}), winner of the 2000 GI Santa Anita Derby and second choice in that year's GI Kentucky Derby, was rescued from a kill pen in Texas earlier this month by his old connections, Barry Irwin's Team Valor, Gary Barber and trainer Jenine Sahadi. The 24-year-old, who had stood stud in several states, was reportedly bought cheaply in Iowa and sent to a feedlot north of Dallas, at which point word quickly spread on the internet and made its way to The Deputy's past connections. By utilizing the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance network, Irwin, Barber and Sahadi enlisted Donna Keen to pick up and transfer The Deputy to her TAA-approved Remember Me Rescue in Burleson, TX, where he will live out his days.

“We decided to have Donna quarantine The Deputy for a while, do some diagnostic work including bloods and a fecal and not reveal anything about the rescue until we were certain that he was healthy, as Donna warned us that horses from feedlots can contract diseases quite readily,” Irwin said. “When the tests all came back negative [Wednesday] and the vet-check proved unremarkable, we decided it was time to tell the story, not to portray ourselves as heroes, but to put an end to the salacious, untrue and unfounded tales that had been circulating online. We want to thank those horse lovers who helped us in our endeavors.”

“We are thrilled to have been able to help the original connections and to be able to take care of the horse and share him with visitors to our rescue,” Keen said, “He is, as could be expected, a bit underweight at this time, but when he fills back up and once again looks the part we look forward to showing him off here in Texas. We are very honored and proud to have been selected as his forever home.”

Barber said, “I have always had a soft spot in my heart for The Deputy. He was my first Grade I winner.”

Sahadi added, “He was the easiest horse to be around. All class. He meant a lot to me and my barn.”

The post The Deputy Rescued from TX Kill Pen appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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The Blueberry Bulletin: A Young OTTB Learns His First Lessons In Retirement, And Teaches A Few

This is the first installment in a series following the early training of OTTB Underscore, fondly known as Blueberry. Blueberry was the subject of a popular column in the Paulick Report soon after editor-in-chief Natalie Voss adopted him via the Godolphin Lifetime Care Program in late 2020. You can read about his origin story here. 

If you like a good OTTB training series, check out our Thoroughbred Makeover Diaries series, which tracks Jonathan Horowitz on his road to the 2021 Retired Racehorse Thoroughbred Makeover here.

Although I have spent many years writing about off-track Thoroughbreds (OTTBs), working professionally with on- and off-track Thoroughbreds, and cheering on friends with their OTTBs at horse shows, Blueberry is the first Thoroughbred who has been all mine.

When I took an internship and later a part-time job at the Secretariat Center some 13 years ago, the whole notion of working with off-track racehorses was somewhat different. Many people with OTTBs believed they needed to “restart” them, taking them back to the very beginning of training and almost rebreaking them to saddle, as if the experience would be entirely new and overwhelming for the horse otherwise. Now, from what I understand, the philosophy has shifted – it's best to capitalize on what the Thoroughbred already knows. They have been ridden before, they've trailered frequently, and they've been groomed, bathed, clipped and handwalked extensively through their lives. This isn't the same as starting a green horse, and the training trajectory shouldn't be the same.

Until now, my education as a horse owner comes from a Percheron/Thoroughbred cross mare named Jitterbug who I started under saddle when she was five years old and eventually brought through the lowest levels of eventing, dressage, and jumpers. She was a case who had to be taken from the ground up. Jitterbug was a formerly feral horse who spent her first three years with little to no human contact, and that has drastically impacted the way she has progressed in her training. Accepting a saddle and rider was no problem for her; taking instructions like 'Trot' and 'Turn' was a personal affront. She reminded me loudly and often that she was bigger, smarter, and faster than I am, and that working with me was always her choice and not her obligation. Some of this is down to being a mare, but a lot of it is down to having grown up independent of human kindness or authority. It took years and lots of help of my esteemed trainer Stephanie Calendrillo of Graystone Stable to even begin trotting crossrails, let alone polish her into the productive citizen she is today.

I already knew that Blueberry would have a different concept of the horse/human relationship and as we have begun our early ground work, he indeed tries very hard to do what he is asked. We've learned to lunge, ground drive, long line, walk forwards and backwards over poles, and have conquered minor skepticism of tarps, plastic, puddles, tires, umbrellas, and pool noodles – all with great ease. I think part of his success, besides his very hands-on beginning, was that I entered into each new task with some idea of what aspects could be new or unsettling for him, but behaved as though I expected him to be familiar with the new task.

Most racehorses haven't been crosstied in a grooming stall before, but this is common practice in riding stables. Almost all of them have become used to standing quietly while tied to the back wall in their stalls in the mornings, though. The main difference, I reasoned, would be pressure on two sides of the halter instead of one, but the principle would be the same – Blueberry should know that this was time to stand quietly, and that if he hit the slack on one tie, he could move himself easily to relieve that tension. On our first afternoon, I clipped him in, ensured the quick release hardware worked, and pulled the barn door closed just in case he became upset and broke out. Then I went to work grooming him as though this was perfectly ordinary. The first time he stepped to one side and felt the tension increase, I gently tapped his shoulder to direct him to move sideways to create slack. From there, I let him figure it out—and he did. We'd spend short periods in the grooming stall at first, and gradually increased our time there, sometimes taking a break from grooming for me to put equipment away so he would see that this is a time for relaxation.

Blueberry on his first day of long line work

We've progressed this way with each new obstacle or task, and through a combination of a great brain and past experience, he has met every expectation with minimal confusion and almost no anxiety.

That doesn't mean my years of study have left me without fault, of course. I had some idea of what to expect from a retired Thoroughbred based on my past experience, I thought, but I believed I came into the process relatively free of faulty preconceptions about what the experience would be like.

Well. Horses have a way of teaching you things about yourself that you didn't realize you needed to know, and mine has already taught me that I came in with a lot of management stereotypes in the back of my brain. Here are a few of the ones Blueberry pointed out by proving them wrong:

  • Thoroughbreds will struggle to gain weight. Blueberry arrived in late November with some race fitness to him still, about four weeks after his last breeze. For my purposes, I wanted him to gain a little weight but he didn't need much. He was going onto 24-hour turnout, and I assumed that with winter looming it would be an uphill battle to improve his condition even a little bit. In roughly a month, he looked fantastic with two modest grain meals a day. Granted, he lost some ground again during the extreme cold and precipitation in February, but made it up again similarly easily.
  • Thoroughbreds may struggle in extreme cold if they enter turnout mid-winter with a slick coat. I got a light sheet for Blueberry in December but found my draft mare's clothes were way too big for him so I had didn't have a ton of different blanket choices to work with at first. I worried about this — would he shiver and shake without a puffy medium weight and neck cover? No, as it turned out. In fact, he runs warm and even before his winter coat grew in, I had to be more cautious about letting him get overheated with a blanket than too cold without one.
  • Barefoot Thoroughbreds will immediately and constantly abscess and chip their feet, especially in a wet winter. Blueberry arrived barefoot and my plan is to keep him that way as long as I can to let his soles toughen up before he begins under saddle work in another couple of weeks. So far we've had one bruise in four months and while I anticipate he'll need shoes when he starts real work, that's a much better record than I thought we'd have.
  • Horses, including Thoroughbreds, are bonkers for treats. Did not imagine this was a misconception, but Blueberry tells me with great authority that only red and white mints are treats. Carrots, apples, horse cookies, green and white mints, and even candy canes (yes, that's right – a mint in a different shape) are not edible and must be thrown out of a grain pan immediately.

I believe that no matter what type of work you're doing, horse training is a two-way street: if the horse isn't also teaching you something, you're probably doing it wrong. So far, Blueberry is a patient, kind teacher and I hope to be the same for him as we progress in our journey together.

For more of Underscore's OTTB journey, follow his Facebook page.

The post The Blueberry Bulletin: A Young OTTB Learns His First Lessons In Retirement, And Teaches A Few appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Racing Victoria Announces Grants For Businesses That Use OTTBs

Racing Victoria (RV) has today announced new support for Victorian businesses, including horse/trail riding services, equine colleges, equine therapy centers and pony clubs, to bolster the opportunities afforded horses' that have retired from the Victorian racing industry.

A new $10,000 business grant for Victorian equine-related businesses will help boost their operations, with the sole objective of growing the number of off-the-track Thoroughbreds being utilized by these organizations.

The Off The Track Business Grant Program is expected to help stimulate businesses to accommodate more horses, including those currently operating with Thoroughbreds or looking to take them on for the first time.

The program contains four key initiatives, including increasing the number of retired Thoroughbreds an equine business can utilize; increasing the breadth of career options for non-competitive thoroughbreds; providing longevity to thoroughbreds in their post-racing career; and encouraging an equine business (which may currently utilize other breeds) to incorporate thoroughbreds into their operation on a sustainable basis.

Both for-profit and not-for-profit businesses are eligible to apply for the grant, and must submit their application before 5 p.m. (AEST) on April 9, 2021 via the programs SmartyGrants page.

Building on the positive progress of RV's current post-racing initiatives, this program recognizes the importance of growing the demand for thoroughbreds beyond the equestrian community to maximize the opportunities afforded every retired racehorse.

This grant becomes even more important in the current climate, where the COVID-19 pandemic continues to suppress economic activity, and may do for a considerable period into the future.

The Off The Track Business Grant Program will complement the various post-racing initiatives RV has introduced over the past 12 months, including the RESET Program, Retrainer Capacity Expansion Grant Program, COVID-19 relief support scheme for RV Acknowledged Retrainers, and partnerships with organizations such as Riding for the Disabled Association of Victoria to help improve the post-racing wellbeing of racehorses in Victoria.

For more information on the Off The Track Business Grant Program, including application criteria, visit: racingvictoria.com.au/grants

Quotes attributed to RV General Manager, Equine Welfare, Jennifer Hughes:

“I'm really excited to see the Off The Track Business Grant Program open to Victorian businesses today.

“It's another important step to help expand our post-racing options available to retired racehorses.

“We know that like any horse, not all former gallopers are suited to the equestrian world, so this opens the door for more Thoroughbreds to explore non-competitive options post-racing.

“The program also provides us the opportunity to work with operators we traditionally haven't considered as a pathway for off-the-track horses and further demonstrate the versatility of Thoroughbreds.

“We hope to support and incentivize those businesses that are either looking to increase the number of Thoroughbreds they currently have or for those considering the breed for the first time.

“Ultimately, our aim is to see this program drive long-term demand for Thoroughbreds post-racing and support the growth of equine businesses operating in Victoria.”

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