WHERE ARE THEY NOW? PARAGALLO HORSES ARE THRIVING, THANKS TO THE TRF

By Bill Finley 
   The mare, now 7, stands in the ring, so still, content and gentle that there's no doubt she is at peace with herself and her world around her. She seems to understand that she is safe and loved and that nothing bad will ever happen to her again. Amanda Shelton, her owner, approaches and she doesn't flee or pin her ears back, but lifts her head, knowing that what it is to come is a loving caress of her muzzle. 
   “She is very sweet by nature. She wants to be with people,” said Judy Swal, a riding instructor who works with Shelton and the mare, who came through the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation pipeline. 
   That is not how you might have imagined this story would have developed with the mare they call, simply, Brown, for she is one of the Ernie Paragallo horses. And that meant the first two-plus years of her life were a living hell filled with starvation and abandonment. 
   Her fortunes, as well as those of dozens of other horses found starving on Paragallo's Climax, New York farm, began to turn around when they were rescued by Columbia-Greene Humane Society and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in April, 2009. Under the care of the Humane Society, they were safe, freed from their terrible situation. But the task of nursing them back to health, fattening them up and finding them permanent homes was still a challenge, one that the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation was happy to meet. 
   The TRF took in eight Paragallo horses. They ranged in age and in terms of their predicaments, but none were more unusual than Brown and three others. These were four horses that had lived their lives on their own, without human contact, basically left out in fields to fend for themselves. 
   “They were very close to being feral horses,” said Ron Perez, the president of the Columbia-Greene Humane Society/S.P.C.A. “In about another year, when they turned three, you couldn't have handled them at all.” 
   Paragallo came out of nowhere to emerge as one of the sport's leading owners. He made a splash when selling Unbridled's Song at the 1995 Barrett's March Sale for $1.4 million, a sale that was later overturned when the buyer claimed he had an ankle injury. Paragallo had purchased him as a yearling the year prior, and the horse emerged as one of the sport's top stars before becoming a top stallion. But he was far from a breath of fresh air. Always dressed in black, he was unapologetically crude and abrasive. It was almost as if he relished his sinister, “bad boy” image. 
     It turns out that it was a lot more than just an image. 
     In 2009, Paragallo was arrested when investigators found 177 horses on his Center Brook Farm in Climax, New York in various states of malnourishment. He would later be convicted of 33 charges of animal cruelty and would serve two years in prison. 
   The local Humane Society had rescued the horses, but the hard part was yet to come. 
   “When we arrested him and he released the first 45 horses to us, I was terrified,” Perez said. “What was I going to do with 45 broken-down race horses?” 
   Perez says now that it was far easier to place the horses than he thought, that the thoroughbred community was so appalled by Paragallo's actions that it banded together and made sure that there was a soft landing spot for each and every horse. 
   These weren't well-bred horses and they weren't healthy horses. There were issues with each and every one of them, but none more unique than some 25 then 2-year-olds that Paragallo had left out in a field, basically to fend for themselves. Already midway through their 2-year-old years, they had had next to no contact with humans. 
   “There had been some hay put down so they did see the workers but that was it,” Perez said. “For the most part they stayed away from you unless you were bringing them food. They were very shy, some much more so than others.” 
   The TRF raised its hand and agreed to do whatever it could to help the Paragallo horses. It would get eight. Of those eight, four were older horses that had raced, including Dontletthebigonego, the winner of the Grade III Lafayette S. at Keeneland in 1998. The other four fell into the category of untamed and lost souls. Three had never been registered with The Jockey Club. The TRF christened them Brown, Red and Tank. The fourth had been registered under the name of Energy Flow. 
   Their first stop, in June of 2009, was the TRF farm at the Wallkill Correctional Facility in Wallkill, New York, where inmates have been caring for retired race horses since 1984. This was their introduction to a world where people exist. It was up to Wallkill farm manager Jim Tremper and his workers to teach these horses the many lessons necessary to take them from wild animals to horses who could be adopted and ridden. 
   “You had to start by being gentle,” Tremper said. “They weren't socialized with humans at all. Taking a horse in that hadn't been handled is a big challenge. I could only use my experienced guys, and I only had two at the time. The guys I get here are mainly from New York City, and they've never had any experience around horses or any animals when they first get here.  They are scared to death. Take a scared human and a scared horse and it's not a good match.” 
   Two of the older horses were quickly adopted, but the younger ones weren't anywhere near ready. These were horses that were conditioned to being on their own. It's not that people weren't to be trusted. It's that they had no idea what people were. Acclimating them was a matter of taking one step at a time. Put a carrot in their feed. Feed them a carrot by hand. Try to get close enough to touch them. 
   “There has to be an initiation of trust,” Tremper said. 
   Brown, Tank and Red adjusted in time. Physically and psychologically they came through their ordeal at Paragallo's farm with the type of damage that could be fixed. Energy Flow was a different story. 
   “He arrived here at Wallkill weighing about 600 pounds,” Tremper said. “He was severely emaciated and his rear end was tucked under like he had some sort of discomfort that had been bothering him for quite some time. He had not been handled. We could not get near him. We had to take five or six guys and corner him in order to work with him for the first two weeks. It took almost five months before we could get him comfortable enough where we could work on his feet every day.” 
   He was definitely in much worse shape than the others. 
   “He started to put on weight, and he started to get used to being around the other horses and not be scared. The `scared' thing was crazy because we didn't know if we'd ever be able to work with him. If we couldn't work with him we couldn't help him. He's still very different the way he reacts. He is more cautious when he approaches people. He's more likely to run away if anything doesn't go just exactly the way he expects it to go. He hasn't gotten used to being around people constantly.” 
   Because of the lingering physical problems that were the result of years of malnourishment and because he never did become completely comfortable around people, Energy Flow has remained at Wallkill. He's not adoptable and not going anywhere. 
   It was determined that Brown, Red and Tank could be transformed into horses that could be adopted out, horses that could go on to second careers, perhaps as show horses. Ready for the next stage in their transformation, they were sent to the TRF facility on the James Madison Estate in Montpelier, Virginia. 
  “We broke them and we had to start from zero,” said Montpelier's farm manager Kim Wilkins. “This is what a bridle looks like, what a bit feels like. They had  had no instruction at all, so we started from the very beginning, walk, stop, walk, stop, go in a circle. They did such a good job of getting these fillies halter-broken at Wallkill and saying, 'OK, people aren't the worst thing on the planet' that when they got here it was an easy process.” 
   The problem child among the group sent to Montpelier turned out to be Tank. She would not tolerate having a human on her back. Otherwise easy to deal with, she would lose it whenever someone tried to climb on board. Whether or not that has anything to do with the many months she spent unattended to and unbroken at the Paragallo farm is anyone's guess. Since no one can ride Tank, Montpelier will likely be her home for life. Chief among the TRF mission is that they give permanent refuge to horses that aren't suitable for second careers. 
   Things worked out better for Red and Brown. 
   Red was adopted by Kim Kirschnick, who intends to convert her to a polo horse. Her duties might extend beyond that as Kirschnick doubles as “Cav Man” a mounted mascot who appears on horse back at University of Virginia football games. 
   Kirschnick has been warned to keep any eye on her when it comes to feed time. In what could be a product of her years of being deprived of food, she will not stop eating, which can be dangerous. 
      “I've joked with Kim about her, that she's like Scarlett O'Hara, who says, 'I'll never be hungry again,'” said Jeanne Miles, who works with Wilkins at Montpelier. “She'll eat anything that isn't tied down. Maybe that's related to her past. If you let her, she would eat until she foundered. We kept her in the ring for one month one summer because she got so fat we were really afraid she would founder. She was huge. She does not stop eating.” 
   Swashbuckling at a college football game will not be in Brown's future, but she is in a good place. She is the type of success story that everyone who cares about thoroughbred retirees dreams of and that the TRF so often makes come true. From the very worst circumstances, she has gone on to become a beloved part of a family that not only takes good care of her but has given her a job. 
   “I like the fact that she has been rescued,” Shelton said. “I don't know if it would have mattered to me if she got rescued from horrible circumstances or not. The fact is someone threw her away, which is heartbreaking.” 
   After prospering under the care of the teams at Wallkill and Montpelier Brown was ready to move on and was adopted by the Shelton family in July of 2012. They live on a spacious property in Chesterfield, Virginia and have small children. The Sheltons wanted their children to grow up with horses and Amanda was looking to improve her own riding skills, so she needed a gentle horse to work with. 
   Her daughter wanted to name the new horse Mr. Potato Head, which obviously wasn't going to work, so they let her play around with the name Brown. She came up with Miss Gypsy Brown, but it didn't quite stick. 
   Brown is perfectly healthy and has come to like people, none more so than her owner. 
   “She definitely will form her bonds and she will pick me over anybody,” Shelton said. “It's like the day I saw her, she was supposed to be my horse. I just knew that.” 
   Shelton didn't know about Paragallo or Brown's past before being approached for this story, which says something about the physical and mental state the mare was in when she arrived at her place. 
   “The TRF does a fabulous job,” she said. “They did all the hard work. She looked great when I got her. There was not any physical indication whatsoever of what she went through. Kim really cares for those horses.” 
   It's been four-and-a-half years since the horses were rescued from the Paragallo farm. Paragallo has served his jail sentence and seems to have disappeared. Time moves on, and at least some wounds have been healed.