Paulick Report’s Voss Sweeps Both 2020 Media Eclipse Award Writing Categories For Stories On Aftercare

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Daily Racing Form and the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters today announced the winners of the 2020 Media Eclipse Awards in six categories. This year's awards are highlighted by Natalie Voss, Editor-in-Chief of the Paulick Report, becoming the first individual to win two writing award categories in the same year since the late Bill Nack earned two awards in 1991.

The 2020 Media Eclipse Award winners are as follows:
Feature/Commentary Writing – Natalie Voss, Paulick Report “'An Angel On His Shoulder': This Thoroughbred's Fate Was Written In Ink,” May 13, 2020.

News/Enterprise Writing – Natalie Voss, Paulick Report – Multi-part Series: “A Decade In, How Are We Doing With Thoroughbred Aftercare?” Dec. 2, 2019; “Emptying The Ocean With A Teaspoon: The Challenges Of Aftercare,” Dec. 3, 2019; and “Aftercare Should Not Be An Afterthought: Solutions For The Future,” Dec. 4, 2019.

Television – Live Racing Programming – NBC Sports, “The Breeders' Cup World Championships,” Nov. 7, 2020; Billy Matthews and Lindsay Schanzer, producers.

Television – Features – NBC Sports “Riders Up: The World's First Sports Bubble,” Oct. 2, 2020 on NBCSN; Produced by the Hennegan Brothers.

Audio/Multi-Media Internet – Thoroughbred Daily News (TDN) “To Hell and Back: Belmont Marks A Deserved Triumph for New York City,” Joe Bianca, writer and narrator, Patty Wolfe, producer.

Photography – Alex Evers, Paulick Report “A Derby Without Fans,” Sept. 21, 2020.

Entries were accepted for 2020 Media Eclipse Awards consideration for works which appeared from Nov. 17, 2019 to Nov. 20, 2020.


Voss, from Georgetown, Kentucky, has now won three Eclipse Awards. In addition to the two honors this year, Voss won her first Media Eclipse Award in 2016 for News/Enterprise writing for her article on the lurking dangers of concussions for jockeys, which was also published in the Paulick Report.

“I never could have imagined this happening in my wildest dreams,” said Voss upon learning of her two Eclipse Awards in 2020. “It's a tremendous honor to just win one award, but to win two in one year is unfathomable.

“I'm so pleased to see aftercare stories win in both categories this year. I really believe there are just as many compelling stories in that world as there are on the racetrack, and that they are just as much a part of the Thoroughbred industry.”

In “Angel on His Shoulder,” Voss describes the journey and fate of a claiming horse named Inked, and how he touched the lives of his original owner Kirsten Fada, his breeder, Susan Young, and horse transporter Hannah Meier over a three-year period. Each of these women, with no connection to each other at first, helped assure that Inked would have a safe home after the track. Fada eventually adopted him for a second career after an improbable reunion at the Second Stride OTTB program at Moserwood Farm in Kentucky.

Voss capsulizes the anxieties of those following horses who have moved on from their care:

Unless you have an inroad with the horse's connections, you don't know whether he suffered an injury or is enjoying a well-deserved vacation in a grassy field; whether he has moved on to a second career, or if he's at the end of a long trailer ride in a forgotten pen somewhere. It feels wrong to assume the worst, but irresponsible not to consider it. Where the heart is concerned, the brain can run wild with worst-case scenarios you may be powerless to prevent.

For two years, Fada and Young, a thousand miles apart, were each intently tracking Inked's career. In October 2019, Young found Inked entered in a race at Grants Pass, Oregon and promptly drove four hours from her home to meet the trainer and let him know that she wanted to buy him. Young wanted to send him to his birthplace in Kentucky for a rest before moving him on to an accredited aftercare organization. A short time later, Meier, a part owner of Circle J Transportation, was contracted to pick up a horse at the base of trainer Gilbert Ecoffey in South Dakota. Upon her arrival, she noticed a stocky chestnut in the field that looked awfully familiar. Meier immediately recognized Inked, who had been one of the horses she had worked with under the care of Ecoffey at Grants Pass.

Meier drove Inked to Phoenix Hill Farm in Paris, Kentucky. Meier was hoping that Phoenix Hill owner Kim Dionne would one day call her to take Inked as her own, but she could not work out the logistics due to Covid-19 restrictions. Meier learned a few weeks later that Inked had been picked up and sent to Moserwood, where Fada would re-enter the picture and be reunited with Inked. Young was “floored” to get an email that her gelding had been rehomed in 24 hours. Fada posted a note about her reunion on Facebook and was subsequently connected to Meier.

“When you love a horse that's no longer yours, there is an incredible anxiety if you don't have a good way to find out where it is,” said Voss. “When you love racing, there will be one or two horses that will become special to you whether they are in your barn or not. Horses get lost in the ether and you may never see them again. I was struck by the improbability of it all. This is not an accomplished racehorse; he was not easily trackable like a well-known stakes horse might have been, and the stars really had to align so that Inked came back to Kirsten.”

The winning entry can be viewed here.

Honorable mention in the Feature/Commentary category went to 2008 Eclipse Award winner Vinnie Perrone for “The Autumn of King Leatherbury,” which was published in racingbiz.com on Nov. 17, 2020.

Judges in the Feature/Commentary category were Dan Liebman, former editor of The BloodHorse and The State-Journal in Frankfort, Kentucky; Bill Kolberg, former assistant director of publicity at Santa Anita and Del Mar and published author on Thoroughbred racing; and Lynne Snierson, national award-winning turf writer for daily publications in Boston, Miami and St. Louis, and veteran racetrack publicist.

News/Enterprise: Multi-Part Series

In her three-part series that won the News/Enterprise writing category, Voss explores the achievements and struggles of the Thoroughbred aftercare movement that has reached prominence in the past decade. What began as one article on the phenomenon expanded into a series through the encouragement of publisher Ray Paulick and former Editor-in-Chief, Scott Jagow.

“I had some sense before I began the research process that the volume of horses needing aftercare was greater than the current infrastructure could handle,” said Voss, who earned a degree in Equine Science and Management from the University of Kentucky and also worked at the Secretariat Center at the Kentucky Horse Park before launching a career in journalism. “But the disparity between the number of horses in need of a second career and the capacity of the various accredited organizations was greater than I'd imagined, and really shows that more needs to be done.”

In part one of the series, “A Decade In, How Are We Doing With Thoroughbred Aftercare?,” Voss traces the evolution of aftercare from increased awareness of the problem through the explosion of social media, to initial “check off” fundraising efforts establish by The Jockey Club and Thoroughbred Charities of America, to the great leap forward to the creation of the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, which established high standards for accreditation and has overseen the distribution of $17.2 million to accredited organizations. The creation of second career incentive programs like Thoroughbred Makeover and The Jockey Club's Thoroughbred Incentive Program were also key.

Part two of the series, “Emptying The Ocean With A Teaspoon: The Challenges Of Aftercare,” raises questions about the cost of care for the high number of horses retired each year and the fate of horses that are never raced, and how retirement organizations can handle that load. It also raised questions about the slaughter pipeline and how the economics of that industry impact OTTBs.

Part three of the series “Aftercare Should Not Be An Afterthought: Solutions For The Future,” focused on the reliance on funding, continuing encouragement of horsemen to avoid “one final start” before retirement, and understanding that horses that retire healthy stand a far better chance of a second home that does who are not; and improved communication between racetracks and aftercare organizations on limiting the slaughter pipeline.

The winning submission can be viewed here: Part 1Part 2Part 3

Honorable Mention in the News/Enterprise category went to Richard Gross for “Authentic Proves He's Just That,” a race recap of Kentucky Derby which appeared on the Horse Network website on Sept. 6, 2020.

Judges in the New Enterprise category were: Bob Kieckhefer, racing writer for United Press International; Rob Longley, sports columnist, who first covered the Triple Crown in both Canada and the U.S. in 1996 and is currently baseball columnist for the Toronto Sun; and David Papadopoulos, a senior editor at Bloomberg News.

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‘It Was Like Me And My Own Shadow’: Birdstone Finds Comfort In Former Stablemate Sun King

2004 Belmont and Travers Stakes winner Birdstone recently retired from his stud duties at Gainesway Farm in August to live the simple life at Old Friends Thoroughbred Retirement Facility in Georgetown, Ky. After 15 years at stud, the son of Grindstone had some trouble getting adjusted to his new life of leisure.

Old Friends founder Michael Blowen told America's Best Racing that all Birdstone needed was the comfort of a familiar face.

“Birdstone was really nervous; he was anxious and sweaty. He calmed down a little, but not a lot, in the first week. Then, I noticed that he wouldn't take his eyes off Sun King,” Blowen said. “It was like me and my own shadow, almost like a stalker. When he went to get hay, Birdstone would go get hay; when Sun King would get a drink of water, Birdstone got water.”

A quick phone call to Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito revealed that Birdstone and Sun King had been stalled right across from each other for a time while training with Zito. Although the two, as intact stallions, can't be turned out in the same paddock, they are within sight of each other whenever Sun King isn't in his run-in shed. Birdstone has since relaxed as long as he has eyes on his buddy.

It's not the first friendship Blowen has seen between notable horses. Stormy Liberal and Patch bonded immediately and Game On Dude and Little Mike hate to be separated even for overnights in the barn.

Read more at americasbestracing.net.

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Prats Keep Now-Retired Crosscheck Carlos All In The Family, Even In Retirement

Stakes winner Crosscheck Carlos may be retired from the racetrack, but I Am Horse Racing points out he's still seeing some familiar faces in his new career. The 7-year-old was piloted by jockey Flavien Prat during his maiden victory in 2016 at Santa Anita, and after his retirement the following year, he was adopted by Prat's wife Manon.

Manon Prat retired from her work as an exercise rider and said that he work with Crosscheck Carlos gives her a way to remain involved with horses beyond watching her husband's career.

Prat and Crosscheck Carlos went to their first jumper show and have a good base to build their new skills together.

Crosscheck Carlos retired the winner of the D.S. Shine Young Futurity and runner-up in the Barretts Juvenile Stakes and Gold Rush Futurity.

See the full video feature, courtesy of TVG:

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Breeders, It’s Time To Step Up: Good Stewardship Means A Commitment To Aftercare

As the end of this long, strange year approaches, I'm sure you're getting them too. My mailbox is overflowing with them – solicitations from every nonprofit I've ever bought a calendar from, making one last pitch for year-end giving. Among them for me (and probably for you) will be lots of requests from Thoroughbred aftercare organizations. As the owner of an off-track Thoroughbred, I'm happy to do whatever I can to support them. How can you not feel good about giving to charity?

The thing is, this particular cause shouldn't be so reliant on charity.

Last year, before the pandemic hobbled fundraising and operations for many non-profits, I wrote a three-part series about what is and isn't working in Thoroughbred aftercare. (You can find it here, here, and here.) It was clear then that while we have come a long way as an industry in the infrastructure and funding dedicated to this cause, the enormity of the problem dwarfs the solutions we've come up with so far. One of the biggest hurdles has always been paying for the care of horses permanently retired or the temporary care, assessment and training of horses waiting to go to a good home.

The racing industry has grappled with this, setting up voluntary check-off funding programs and more recently implementing a few mandatory ones. It's generally believed that everyone who benefits financially from a racehorse's life cycle should chip in to his retirement, but in lieu of serious mandatory funding mechanisms delineating how this should be done, people spend a lot of time 1) justifying why it's someone else's problem to solve or 2) crying poverty.

I was fortunate enough to enter the racing world under the tutelage of Virginia owner/breeder Nellie Cox, who took aftercare seriously long before it became a national discussion. Cox was lucky in that she had the space to retire horses onto her properties in Goochland and Cumberland Counties if suitable homes couldn't be found for them. Her daughter Lisa put training into many before selling them on to homes as eventers, foxhunters, or show jumpers. She never thought she owed them anything less and that's what I grew up believing the role of a breeder was supposed to be – a sense of stewardship for your land, for your bloodlines, for the horses. Stewardship doesn't expire when a colt is gelded or a horse is sold or a mare fails to produce. That's the point of it.

I agree that everyone who uses a horse during its racing life should bear some responsibility for the horse's safe delivery to a home after racing. But I am not afraid to say the thing that I'm pretty sure people in high places don't want me to: it's the breeder who decides a horse should exist, and who spends thousands of dollars to bring about that existence. It's time they be required to take more meaningful responsibility for that existence after the horse has expended its usefulness to them.

I'm not the first person to think of this. In 2011, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sent a letter to The Jockey Club proposing a $360 mandatory retirement fee be paid at the time of a foal registration, along with a $360 fee for ownership transfers to fund aftercare. This, the organization pointed out, is less than $1 a day and is (I'm pointing out) less than the minimum bid at any of the major Thoroughbred auctions in this country. It also pointed to the appallingly low participation in voluntary programs available at the time – in 2010, the letter claimed voluntary foal registration contributions totaled $43,000 from 30,000 registrations.

Of course there are now mandatory programs – breeders must now pay $25 for each report of a mare bred and $25 for each foal registration. (For context, $25 buys about a bag of grain.) Earlier this year, Fasig-Tipton and Keeneland announced their voluntary checkoff programs would become mandatory – but only for sellers, who would be charged 0.05% on each sale. The auction houses would continue to pay 0.05% on each sale, and buyers would be given the choice to opt out of paying 0.05% of each horse's sale price to aftercare.  (That's $50 from the seller and $50 from the auction house on the sale of a $100,000 horse.)

The trouble is, when one funding stream becomes mandatory, those who had opted in to voluntary programs often opt back out of them, so the total amount of cash coming in doesn't change as much as you would hope. In some cases, farms that previously committed to a percentage of the stud fee for each mare bred have eliminated that and actually pay less in aftercare funding under the current system.

How is the system currently working to address the needs of aftercare organizations? Let's take a look at the best-case scenario in a random selection of real-life cases. For the purposes of this study, I'll be generous. I'll assume that the people in the horse's journey have opted in to voluntary funding programs, and I'll also add the numbers based on programs and percentages of December 2020, even though they may have been different or absent when today's horses were bred, foaled or sold.

As I write this, it's late on Dec. 28. If I randomly select a handful of entrants in upcoming races in the major racing states – New York, Kentucky, and Florida – I should have some idea how much an average group of horses generates for the aftercare system.

The next racing card in New York will be on Dec. 31. The first runner in the first race at Aqueduct that day is Hail Da King. If the current funding mechanisms had been in place at the time of his birth in 2017, he would have put $25 into the system at his conception and another $25 at the time of his registration for a total of $50. He has not sold through public auction, so he did not contribute there. He's never started before, so he also hasn't contributed via New York's mandatory $10 per start program yet. If he were claimed from this race, 1.5% of his claiming price will be automatically donated to aftercare.

Total: $50

All right, he's a maiden claimer – bad example? Let's look at Race 2. The first horse we come to there is Ok Honey, a 4-year-old who also hasn't gone through the auction ring, but she has made her entire career in New York – 42 starts so far. That means the horsemen gave $10 for each of those starts, on top of the $50 her breeders gave when she was conceived and registered.

Total: $470 

What about another state? Let's look at Kentucky, where Turfway Park is also running Dec. 31. The first horse on the day is Irish-bred Mila's Dream. Mila's Dream was born and sold twice in Ireland, so no contributions there. She has run twice in California, once in Illinois, and three times in West Virginia. In California, she might have contributed through CARMA, which is an opt-out program. If her jockey, owner and trainer all remained opted in to the program, then .03% of the purse money she earned there would be donated to aftercare. She earned $19,860 in California, so that would be $5.96 total. Her start at Arlington generated a $1 donation from the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association. Her start in Kentucky will generate a $5 donation from the Kentucky horsemen to aftercare, which Turfway Park will match.

Total: $16.96

Ok, ok – surely we can apply the new mandatory sale donation programs to a current runner and see those totals go up, right? Let's switch to Florida, where a lot of young horses get their starts and where a lot of big commercial stables are wintering right now.

The first runner at Gulfstream Park on Dec. 31 is actually Sister Is Devil, who some readers may remember from a heartfelt piece by our own Chelsea Hackbarth in October 2019. I did not know she was entered on this date, but I looked at the first races on the other two cards so will analyze her as well. She has run six times previously, all in Florida, where the Florida HBPA provides a monthly contribution to aftercare based on a percentage of the purses given out that month. It's not immediately clear to me what the rate is per horse; let's be generous and say it's $10 per start. She went through the sale ring twice – selling for $2,000 as a short yearling and $11,000 at Keeneland September. Assuming everyone involved opted in to aftercare contributions at both sales, that would have generated .15% of each sale price, or $3 and $16.50 respectively.

Total = $129.50 

This is far from a scientific inquiry. Of course, the entrants early on a weekday card will have generated less in purses and sale fees than Saturday horses. But we also have more weekday horses in this sport than we do Saturday horses – a lot more. And the Saturday horses probably have a greater chance of going on to breeding careers where aftercare won't be necessary. (I must concede here that experts estimate about 30 percent of Thoroughbreds who race will go on to breeding careers, so some horses whose connections pay into the aftercare system will never need it.)

How do those estimated totals stack up to the need?

When I was doing research on aftercare costs for my series last year, the executive director of one organization estimated the living and care costs for retired horses is $300 to $400 a month, or $3,600 to $4,800 per year. For horses that need retraining and adoption, monthly costs are higher but their stays are shorter. At New Vocations, for example, there's board, training and veterinary work to think about, and even a quick adoption can cost the organization $750 or $1,000 at minimum. That's assuming the horse is healthy and needs no rehabilitation time from an injury, that vet work to assess the horse's condition is minimal, and the horse can be marketed, the adopter vetted, and the horse picked up in less than four weeks. It also assumes the horse is conformationally correct enough to attract an adopter and has no serious mental or physical limitations for its next career. Horses who don't fit these qualifications (and many, many do not) will cost more.

The Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance is doing the work it was created to do – accrediting nonprofits, promoting ex-racehorses, and raising funds. It's just that the need is growing faster than the money, because key stakeholders don't want to pony up. (Wondering who? See who's absent from the TAA's supporters list.)

The current system isn't working. It's time The Jockey Club stopped asking the industry's most powerful stakeholders to be kind. It's time our breed registry required them to become good stewards.

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