Thoroughbred Makeover Diaries Presented By Excel Equine: Do You Love Your Racehorse? Show Them

There is no word in the English language as deep or mysterious as “love.” Love is explored in songs, poems, and books. There's a Greek god and goddess of love, Cupid and Aphrodite. There's an entire holiday devoted to expressing our love for others.

I love a good picture of a jockey, trainer, or owner kissing their horse after a hard-fought race as much as the next person, but the “We love our horses!” rallying cry in response to when outside pressures have questioned the sport's safety is not enough.

Saying “We love our horses!” serves a purpose, but the horse racing industry needs to show it.

Love can be expressed in many ways. Gary Chapman's book The 5 Love Languages that has sold more than 12 million copies and been a New York Times bestseller for a decade discusses five: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Understanding these “love languages” and how they express love in different ways unlocks “the secret to love that lasts,” as Chapman claims as the subtitle to his book.

So, I'd like to introduce “The 5 Love Languages for Racehorses” and share how one racehorse trainer I admire has fluency in all of them. In no way am I suggesting that this is a comprehensive list or that I am an effective love linguist like Chapman. However, love for the horse drives my equine broadcasting career, my work with OTTBs, and my aspirations as an eventer.

Meet Kim Oliver

Kim Oliver is a fifth-generation horse trainer.

“I have many memories of my grandparents and great grandparents racing,” she said.

However, Oliver initially chose a different career path for herself. She received a bachelor of science in exercise physiology from Arizona State University and a bachelor of science in nursing from the University of Northern Colorado. She became a registered nurse in intensive care units and in homes and started a non-profit to assist her community in western Colorado.

All the while, Oliver would help her family's racing stable from ponying on the track to hauling horses from the family farm to the racetrack. In 2012, she decided to get her trainer's license.

Oliver has trained racehorses around the country, from Arapahoe Park in her home state to the Southern California circuit to Turf Paradise in Arizona to Canterbury Park in Minnesota to Oaklawn Park in Arkansas.

She has also become an advocate for Thoroughbred welfare. She started an aftercare committee within the Colorado Horseracing Association and serves on the board of CANTER USA.

“Aftercare, especially in the last decade, has gained legitimacy that it never experienced before, and a big part of that is people like Kim taking an active role in their horses' aftercare and well-being and being a vocal advocate for those horses,” said Jen Roytz, executive director of the Retired Racehorse Project.

Kim Oliver with Mr Wild Kitty at Arapahoe Park in Colorado on the day she donated the horse to CANTER USA.

Racing Love Language #1: Showing Affection

This is the easiest form of love that racing connections can express. Oliver always has a tub of Mrs. Pastures horse treats on hand. Her horses look happy and have good manners in return. Like politicians kissing babies, it serves its purpose, but it's just a starting point toward having a lasting impact on the welfare of horses and the horse racing industry.

Racing Love Language #2: Preparing for the Future

The market for retired racehorses has grown, as organizations like Retired Racehorse Project and events like the Thoroughbred Makeover shine a spotlight on the potential of Thoroughbred sport horses across a variety of disciplines.

“People always think of the Thoroughbred industry as the breeding, sales, and racing sectors, and I really feel like in the last 10 years, more and more, aftercare is becoming one of those sectors,” Roytz said. “The industry is taking the welfare of its athletes much more seriously.”

Retraining a horse straight off the track is not easy and not for the faint of heart. However, Oliver makes that process more accessible by instilling manners and skills for her horses that are not necessarily needed for life on the track but are must-haves for off it. They're simple things like standing while mounting or responding to leg cues, but they go a long way.

“We train them knowing that they're going to have a career after we finish racing them,” she said.

My wife, Ashley Horowitz, rode the 2015 grey gelding Mr. Frosty that Oliver trained on the track in the 2020 Makeover Master Class, and the horse's first ride off the track exceeded expectations because Frosty already had an off-track education while on-track.

“Kim's horses come with tools that make it so much easier for them to transition off the track,” she said.

Racing Love Language #3: Knowing When to Retire Your Horse

In addition to planning what races to compete in and what her horse's goals on the track will be when a race meet starts, Oliver also thinks about her horses' futures after the season.

“This will be his last season, and then we'd like him to find him a new home,” Oliver said to me about the 2011 chestnut gelding Mr Wild Kitty at the start of the 2019 season at Arapahoe Park.

She had also said the same thing about Mr. Frosty.

Mr Wild Kitty ran twice that season, both sixth-place finishes, in a Colorado-bred stake and in an allowance race. Rather than dropping the classy stakes winner that had made $127,258 over a 48-race career into claiming company or pushing for “one more race,” Oliver donated the son of Kitten's Joy to CANTER USA, the aftercare organization that I've been president of for two years.

The horse came to our farm and became the star of a video about the organization. It's easy to see Oliver's love for one of her stable stars.

Racing Love Language #4: Giving Back

There are many great aftercare organizations like Thoroughbred Charities of America and the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance whose work racetracks and horsemen's associations will support through donation of starter fees and other fundraising efforts. Oliver helped the Colorado Horseracing Association launch the committee Retired Racehorses of Arapahoe Park that directly supports the horses that raced at the track.

RR of ARP shares stories about former racehorses on social media. The committee coordinated for the racetrack to sponsor a special award for the top-finishing former racehorse from Arapahoe at the Thoroughbred Makeover. The committee sponsored the 2020 Makeover Master Class that showcased Mr. Frosty's first ride off the track. Start fees were donated to local events like the Spring Gulch Horse Trials and the Arapahoe Hunt.

“We want to help the people that are caring for our horses,” Oliver said. “We want to support the places where our horses now compete. Thankfully, we get great support from the racetrack and other horsemen to do this.”

In response to creating an award recognizing the top-finishing Arapahoe Park racehorse at each level at the Spring Gulch Horse Trials in August 2020, the horse show posted on its Facebook page, “We love this! Arapahoe Park wants to acknowledge all the horses who go on to new careers after racing in Colorado!”

Efforts like these bring the racehorse and sport horse worlds together.

Trainer Kim Oliver celebrates with jockey Scott Stevens after victory in the 2017 Aspen Stakes at Arapahoe Park in Colorado.

Racing Love Language #5: Staying Involved

More recently, Oliver has taken a more direct personal responsibility for the training of her horses after they retire. She sent Olivia the Star, a half-sister to Mr Wild Kitty, and Pink Chablis, a half-sister to Mr. Frosty, to our farm in October 2020 to be retrained. She's retained ownership of those horses since they've retired and invested in their development off the track so that they can find good homes.

Oliver checks in with us regularly about her horses. She tells us how special those horses were to her stable and backs up her words by staying involved in their lives once they've left.

“She's the kind of person the industry needs to spotlight,” Roytz said.

Jonathan Horowitz is a long-time fan of racing who went from announcer to eventer with the help of off-track Thoroughbreds (OTTBs). See more of his columns in this series here.

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Kirkpatrick & Co Presents In Their Care: Even When Times Are Tough, Keens Do Right By Their Horses

 Dallas Keen found himself inextricably drawn to a woman riding a dappled gray pony one morning at Lone Star Park in 2004. He had to know her name.

“You don't want to know,” an outrider replied. “She's high maintenance.”

Three years later, Dallas and Donna were married, forming one of racing's most passionate couples when it comes to training Thoroughbreds and providing for their aftercare. As for the high-maintenance tag applied to Donna?

“I found out she's not high maintenance other than she likes to collect horses because she wants to save every horse there is,” Dallas said. “That's her mission.”

That noble mission has led the couple to live life at warp speed since they met. They oversee 12 runners in a racing stable they are working to re-build after they relocated to Texas from California last year. They operate Keen Farms, a 20-acre breeding, breaking and training facility in Burleson, Texas. And they have spared scores of horses from grim ends since founding Remember Me Rescue in 2008.

Remember Me Rescue prepared more than 40 horses for adoption in 2020. It says everything about Donna's hard-driving nature that she is determined to find new homes for more than 50 horses this year.

“This really became a priority for me when I saw these horses with good owners ending up in bad places,” Donna said. “We have the place, we have enough acreage, we have the help that we could re-train these horses for these folks straight from the racetrack.”

The Keens have built professional lives from which there is no real escape, given horses' incessant needs. And that is fine with them.

“We find time for our personal time,” Donna said, “but we still talk about horses because that's our passion.”

They were having lunch some time ago when someone texted Donna a photo of a terribly neglected horse that looked more like a skeleton and asked if anything could be done. They never finished their meal. Donna headed to the site. Dallas picked up a trailer to meet her there. Even then, they did not arrive in time. But the call to help one horse that could not hang on another hour led them to successfully rescue another that was clinging to life.

“When you get those calls, you hate them,” Dallas said. “It gives you a real sick feeling that someone can let a horse get into that situation.”

Dallas on the pony, Donna on the racehorse

It happens, of course, far too often. And there is the reality that only so much can be done. Horses will perish from neglect. Horses will face the terror of the slaughterhouse.

“That is the hardest thing I have to do, decide which horses you can help and which horses you can't,” Donna said. “We try to put a priority on horses we know we can re-home the quickest because we know when those horses get homes, we can go and help more horses.”

The Keens do not have easy lives. Donna had to carry much of the load after Dallas sustained major injuries in a riding accident at Sam Houston Race Park early last year. He was hospitalized for five days while a dangerous buildup of fluid was drained from his lungs. Ten screws and a plate were required to surgically repair a badly-broken ankle.

For all of the work they do, the return on their labor is hardly financially rewarding.

“Half of the time, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Dallas said. “You get into a situation where somebody can't pay a training bill, it's money you've already paid out of your pocket. If I could have all of the money that I've lost over the years from not getting paid, I'd be sitting real good right now. That's part of the business. Some people have bigger ambitions than they've got wallets.”

While the Keens are optimistic about their future in Texas and their ability to attract new owners, their numbers suffered after they decided to relocate there from California. They had conditioned as many as 55 horses and know they must fill more than the 12 stalls they currently have occupied.

According to Equibase, the stable was still looking for its first victory this year after eight starts brought three second-place finishes and one third for earnings of $17,356 in action at Sam Houston and Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots. Their runners made only 56 starts last year but won at an 18 percent clip while finishing in the money 41 percent of the time for $251,672 in purses.

Dallas and Donna Keen

“You've got to watch everything you do,” Dallas said of their spending. “But one thing we've never done is cut our horses short. That's where sometimes you get caught a little upside down because you're spending more money than you're bringing in. But the first priority is the horses got to get the best of everything.”

It helps that Remember Me Rescue is accredited by the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance and benefits from TAA grants as well as its own fundraising efforts. The organization also is bolstered by devoted volunteers who follow up on adopted horses to make sure they are in good hands.

The Keens admit there are some horses that become so beloved they cannot possibly part with them. Bee Bop Baby is among those.

“She came from skin and bones and now she's a big, fat, happy mare. She's what we call a lifer,” Dallas said, sounding very much like a man who has everything he needs.

Tom Pedulla wrote for USA Today from 1995-2012 and has been a contributor to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Blood-Horse, America's Best Racing and other publications.

If you wish to suggest a backstretch worker as a potential subject for In Their Care, please send an email to info@paulickreport.com that includes the person's name and contact information in addition to a brief description of the employee's background.

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480 Trainers Accepted to 2021 TB Makeover Class

Edited Press Release

The Retired Racehorse Project (RRP) has welcomed 484 accepted applications, representing 480 unique trainers and teams, to the 2021 class of the Thoroughbred Makeover and National Symposium, presented by Thoroughbred Charities of America. The Thoroughbred Makeover is the world's largest and most lucrative retraining competition for ex-racehorses, and the 2021 class combined with 322 trainers from the postponed 2020 competition year will make this the biggest Makeover yet.

“After the pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 Thoroughbred Makeover, it was important to us to preserve the opportunity for our 2020 class to compete, and thanks to so many loyal sponsors and donors from the racing, breeding and sport horse worlds, we are going to be putting on the largest retraining competition in history,” said RRP executive director Jen Roytz.

The application process for the 2021 Thoroughbred Makeover required trainers to demonstrate their skills and expertise through competition results, videos and references, as well as a letter from a vet stating that that the applicant has the necessary skills and knowledge to appropriately care for a horse transitioning off the track. The RRP's selection committee took into consideration both candidates' ability to effectively retrain an off-track Thoroughbred and candidates' commitment to the RRP's mission of promoting off-track Thoroughbreds in second careers.

Accepted trainers are encouraged to register their horses at TBMakeover.org as soon as they acquire them. Horse registration closes July 31, but registration upon acquisition allows the RRP to better gather data on horses undergoing the Makeover process.

Accepted trainers for 2021 include Becky Huestis, assistant rider and manager for John Madden Sales; Darby Mazzarisi, champion hunter trainer; and Natalie (Voss) Nevills, a two-time Eclipse Award-winning turf writer for the Paulick Report. They join a diverse class of trainers hailing from 46 states and four Canadian provinces. Trainers range in age from 11 (will be 12 at the time of the Makeover as per rules) to 74.

The post 480 Trainers Accepted to 2021 TB Makeover Class appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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The Kill Pen Economy: Why Is The Slaughter Pipeline So Hard To Shut Off?

Those who pay attention to such things may have noticed a familiar bay mare with a distinctive star whose picture appeared on social media in December with a post imploring readers to rescue her from a grim fate. The mare was identified as Apt To Smile, a Louisiana-bred daughter of Parading who had completed an undistinguished racing career in May 2017, and she was offered for sale by a well-known kill pen in Bastrop, La. The terms for her rescue were the same as they are for many other horses that pass through the lot and others like it each week: Pay us our price, or she's making a long, painful trip to a Mexican slaughterhouse.

This wasn't her first time being offered for sale with a metaphorical gun to her head.

In March 2018 she showed up in the hands of Jacob Thompson, then the operator of Thompson Horse Lot in Pitkin, La. The mare was part of a group of horses bailed by Dina Alborano of ICareIHelp around Easter of that year. Alborano called upon her vast social media army and later said she raised Thompson's ransom of $875 per horse plus another $350 in assessed travel and quarantine and transport charges for Apt To Smile and ten others – a total of $13,475 that materialized within hours from sympathetic onlookers around the country. The group of horses was transported to Alborano's associate Hal Parker for “quarantine” for 30 days before being offered for adoption.

Apt To Smile, according to Alborano, left Parker's care fairly quickly, with her adoption announced on social media in May 2018. (Other horses of course, were not lucky enough to ever leave.) Where she's been from mid-2018 to December 2020 is unrecorded, but it's not uncommon for the same horse to spend time rattling around on the circuit of auctions, horse traders, and kill buyers, changing hands frequently.

In December 2020, Apt To Smile was advertised with a ransom price of $1,050. Pen representatives confirmed to the Paulick Report that the mare was purchased privately before her advertised ship date to Mexico, but declined to identify the buyer.

Assuming the Bastrop lot and the Thompson lot were indeed paid the stated prices for her, that means $1,925 has been paid to two kill pen owners in an attempt to secure one horse's future. Another $350 raised for her feed and board was given either to a man who later pleaded guilty to charges of animal cruelty or vanished after it went to a woman who was eventually the target of an investigation by the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General for mishandling funds given to an unregistered charity. The mare, who is now seven years old, has spent three of those years shuffling from one situation to another, sought out more than once by people who knew she was worth money – but only if she were in danger.

And, she's not alone. A rescue watchdog recently provided this publication with a list of 198 off-track Thoroughbreds said to have passed through the Thompson Horse Lot and advertised for bail or purchase on the lot's social media between 2018 and 2020. Since the relocation of the Thompson operations to Texas, the lot located in Bastrop has reportedly begun advertising more OTTBs. The list also included 20 OTTBs advertised through the Bastrop pen since Oct. 16, 2020.

It must have seemed to some like the end of an unfortunate era when the Louisiana Department of Agriculture sanctioned operators of a well-known social media bail pen in late January, followed by an announcement by the operators of Thompson Horse Lot that it had moved to Texas. The reality is, this segment of the equine economy probably isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

How the slaughter pipeline has become big business

While the flow of horses from racetracks to kill pens was once a happenstance of owners, trainers, and breeders using the pipeline as a way to get an unwanted horse out of the barn, it's now subject to its own economic drivers. The Thompson and Bastrop lots are not the only ones that have caught on to an alternate cash flow source in the form of bail horses. Pen operators sometimes require a single purchaser for each horse and other times will allow the horse to be “bailed” with a price on the horse's head that can be crowdsourced, and then they release the horse to whoever will take it.

People purchase the horses, well above meat price, sight unseen, and are encouraged to use the pen's preferred contractors to vet the horse, attend to the horse's feet, transport the horse to them, and to put the horse in quarantine care – recommended by most animal health experts, since horses at livestock auctions are often mixed and herded together in groups and could be exposed to transmissible disease.

Of course, those paying into the system are taking a lot on faith – they're trusting that the pen is being honest about how much money has or hasn't been raised for a bailed horse; they're trusting that the horse they receive will be the one they saw in videos; they're trusting that even if the horse they saw advertised online is the one that arrives in a trailer, that the horse will be in the same physical condition it was when they sent money for it; and they're trusting pen operators who say these horses were bought for the purpose of slaughter and not as high price, high risk resale projects.

Many people and legitimate non-profits raise bail or buy horses from kill lots through gritted teeth, saying they hate the system but feel for the individual animals trapped in it on this particular week. The trouble is, the recurring willingness to raise funds any way possible has given bail lots financial incentive to buy at auction or seek horses privately not based on which horses will most efficiently fill their trucks to fill a contract with a slaughterhouse, but which can be sold at a higher profit margin to a sympathetic public.

In recent years, Thoroughbreds have begun commanding higher bail prices, no doubt because an ex-racehorse in a kill pen seems to generate a particular type of disgust from social media followers, leading to more likes, shares, and ultimately, more money. In fact, bail pen operators have begun specifically seeking them out for this reason.

This post appeared in April 2019 on the social media page of La Petrona Equine Kill Pen & Auction Horses, a group which was run by the operators of the Thompson Horse Lot

Unfortunately, there is limited information available on the hammer prices for horses at small, local livestock auctions, and often identifications on horses either at auction or at bail can be lacking, so it's nearly impossible to know – did this pen indeed buy this horse with the option of selling it for meat (paying below average meat price of $400 to $600), or did the pen buy the horse at a high enough price that it can only make money if it sells for a $1,000 to $2,000 ransom? If it's the latter, are purchasers rescuing a horse or creating an economic demand?

Where is the racing industry in all this?

For nearly everyone watching the flow of Thoroughbreds into this system, the question is what the Louisiana racing industry is doing about it.

There are two authorities that would seem reasonably able to address the issues: racetrack ownership and the state racing commission. Both have legal snags making it difficult for them to take drastic action to punish people for sending Thoroughbreds into the slaughter pipeline.

The state racing commission has jurisdiction over people who hold racing licenses and is tasked with making and enforcing state regulation regarding horse racing. Someone who's not licensed (i.e., breeders) cannot have action taken against their license.

The commission, after considerable input from attorneys, is hard-pressed to make a state racing regulation against sending a horse to slaughter when there's no federal law against doing so. Slaughtering a horse commercially for meat, or selling/transporting a horse to be slaughtered are not illegal activities in this country. The reason commercial horse slaughter is not a reality in the United States these days is that funding for federal inspection of equine slaughterhouses was written out of the Agriculture Appropriations bill in 2005. That funding language has been carried forward ever since. Animal rights advocacy groups have made moves to formally ban the practice and to prevent the transport of horses for the purposes of slaughter, but have not yet been successful.

As long as the activity itself isn't illegal, the commission hesitates to write a regulation against it. If it did write a regulation against it, the commission would have to enforce that regulation. To enforce it, they'd have to show definitively that someone knowingly sent a horse to the slaughter pipeline. Because horses often pass through livestock auctions and/or horse traders, sometimes in a matter of hours or days, on their way to a bail pen, licensees can frequently claim quite reasonably they didn't know where the horse was going to end up. The commission would be tasked with proving what was or wasn't in someone's mind, which is not an easy thing to do legally.

The ghost of civil cases past

Louisiana in particular has another legal challenge. In other states, courts have ruled that racetracks have certain rights as private actors to exclude people from their grounds. In Louisiana though, an incident in 1980 set a somewhat more complicated legal precedent.

Herbert Roberts, who was a trainer for a Texas racing operation, was one of several horsemen who became critical of track management at Louisiana Downs in Bossier Parish, La., where he often saddled horses for Paradise Farms. Roberts and the others were disturbed that the track was permitting horses to run with a certain type of shoe, and after he had signed a petition about the issue, he was informed he would not be permitted to stable horses or to race there in the 1981 season. The track later recanted, but not before Paradise had laid Roberts off because he couldn't saddle horses for them. Roberts asked the racing commission for assistance but was told the responsibility lay with the track.

Roberts sued for damages and injunctive relief, claiming his rights to free speech had been violated by a system that paired the state and the racetrack in a symbiotic way. The track claimed it was a private entity and could make decisions however it chose regarding stabling in particular. A district court sided with the racetrack, but Roberts appealed.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that, in fact, the question of access to stalls and to the entry box was a matter over which the tracks and the commissions both had input, since the racing secretary and the stewards at various times behave as private actors and as state regulatory enforcers. The appeals court reversed the lower court's ruling.

“We do not today hold that the state and Louisiana Downs are in such a relationship that all acts of the track constitute state action, nor that all acts of the racing secretary constitute state action,” the opinion read. “We do not hold that the actions of any individual in a position which a regulated business is required by law to maintain constitute state action. We hold only that in the complex of facts and regulations present at this stage of the proof in this case, there is a sufficient nexus between the conduct complained of and the state to attribute the conduct to the state.”

The lack of clarity from this case seems to have resulted in a standard response from Louisiana racetracks: with sufficient language they can (and do) include an anti-slaughter clause in their stall applications and can revoke a trainer's stalls if they find it has been violated. They believe however, that they cannot ban a trainer or owner from the entry box if the person's license is clear and that it's up to the commission to take action.

What's being done — and what isn't

“The sale of racehorses to slaughter is a distasteful and inhumane act, and we are vehemently opposed to this practice,” said David Strow, vice president of corporate communications for Boyd Gaming Corporation, which owns Louisiana racetracks Delta Downs and Evangeline Downs. “If we find that an owner or trainer has knowingly sold a horse to slaughter, we will punish them to the greatest extent permitted under state law: the permanent revocation of stall privileges at our track.

“Through our partnership with the National Thoroughbred Welfare Organization (NTWO), we are also providing significant financial support toward putting an end to this practice. Thanks in part to our support, the NTWO has been able to rescue hundreds of retired horses to date. We are proud of our partnership with the NTWO, and will continue doing what we can to help every retired racehorse find the loving home it deserves.”

For a while, NTWO president Victoria Keith said the organization was flooded by calls from trainers. Now, for some reason, the phone hasn't been ringing as much, despite the economic uncertainty of the global pandemic.

“We'd gotten up to 90 plus horses at one time and we just started having to say no to taking horses until we got some cleared out,” said Keith. “Right as we got back to a manageable number, here comes COVID-19.

“Bottom line is we were just taking a horse here or there. The wave that people were expecting didn't really happen.”

As of late January, the organization had 13 off-track Thoroughbreds in its system between facilities in Kentucky and Louisiana.

Boyd Gaming did not inquire further about the list of 200 horses alleged to have passed through Louisiana bail pens since 2018 (or the connections of those horses) but urged this reporter to send that information to the commission for further action. Of course, some of the horses on that list had been off the track for years, pulled off a breeding farm or out of a riding stable or backyard before they showed up in the lot.

It's not always clear how direct the line is from racing industry to bail pen. One thing continues to be true: whatever route they took to get there, there will be pen owners ready to sell them — however many times they pass through the gates.

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