Paying it Forward with BC Aftercare Pledge

Four years ago, when Speak Logistics was a promising 2-year-old whose pair of wins from three starts earned him a berth in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile, Eddie Plesa Jr. pledged a percentage of the trainer's share earnings he might win from the $2-million race to New Vocations, the nation's largest rehabilitation and placement program for retired racehorses.

The generosity wasn't surprising to Anna Ford, the Thoroughbred program director for New Vocations, because ever since the organization started its annual Breeders' Cup pledge fundraiser back in 2009, “Eddie, every year that he's had a horse run, he's pledged.”

Speak Logistics finished seventh in that 2012 Breeders' Cup Juvenile, and ended up winning only one more race from 24 subsequent starts. This past June, when the gelding was struggling at the $15,000 claiming level at Parx, Plesa had a frank conversation with owner Ralph Nabavi (Hardway Stables) about what to do next.

“I told him what our options were,” Plesa recalled earlier this week. “We could drop him into a low-class claiming race, win a race or two, possibly get him claimed. Or we could give him the opportunity to get adopted through New Vocations. Ralph chose New Vocations. He not only sent them the horse, but a nice donation along with the horse. He could have realized some extra money by continuing to race–maybe $10,000 or $20,000. But it would have been a detriment to the horse, and Ralph certainly appreciated what the horse had done for him, so he had no problem doing the right thing by the horse.”

So on July 20, one month after his final race, Speak Logistics was vanned to one of the four New Vocations re-homing facilities. In an odd twist of fate, the gelding has come back to benefit from a financial commitment to equine aftercare that his connections made years ago.

Remarkably, Speak Logistics is not the first such Breeders' Cup pledge horse to find a new way of life through New Vocations.

Romp (Arg) ran in both the 2010 and 2012 versions of the Breeders' Cup Marathon (Grade III and Grade II, respectively). “And so it was pretty cool to have Romp's owners pledge, and then Speak Logistics' connections pledged, and years later the horses themselves ended up coming into our program,” Ford said.

With this year's Thoroughbred world championships four weeks away, New Vocations is once again embarking on its Breeders' Cup pledge drive, which in recent years has garnered the non-profit organization between $45,000 and $110,000 annually. The tax-deductible donations are based on a percentage of Breeders' Cup earnings chosen voluntarily by participants.

Ford said that even though the fund drive officially starts this week, New Vocations knows to expect a flurry of pledges at the last minute, largely because owners and trainers need to finalize pre-entry and entry plans before committing. Her team of staffers will be reaching out to Breeders' Cup-bound connections, but pledge forms are available online at www.horseadoption.com under the “How to Help” section.

“The best thing is, there's no overhead cost to us,” Ford said. “We make the connections and make the calls and send the emails asking people to pledge, and then the horses are the show. We just sit back and see how everybody does.”

Last year's tally of $110,000 in pledges was the high-donation mark for the Breeders' Cup fundraiser, Ford said.

“We had two winners whose connections pledged last year–Stopchargingmaria and Wavell Avenue,” Ford said. “So it is a gamble for us. It's not a set fundraiser. It's one thing to get the pledges, but it helps to get the right pledges,” she added with a laugh.

“For the most part, people who have donated horses to us, and then end up having other horses run in the Breeders' Cup, tend to pledge because they already know what we are about and what we do, and they're happy to do that,” Ford said. “Anybody that runs in the Breeders' Cup is excited, and when you think about it, what's 1% if you win to give back to aftercare? You only have to give if your horse comes in the money. But we've had people pledge, and the horse doesn't run well, but they still send a check anyway.”

Ford said New Vocations can house a maximum of 130 retired Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds at a time. Its main stabling location is at the historic 85-acre Mereworth Farm in Lexington, Kentucky, where the the Susan S. Donaldson Foundation has offered New Vocations a free, long-term lease to build a to build a premier retraining and re-homing facility. Other New Vocations farms are in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, and in Laurelville and Marysville, Ohio. All are accredited by the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance (TAA), which means the facilities have been determined to have met or exceeded TAA requirements in the areas of operations, education, horse care management, and adoption policies and protocols.

About 90% of horses taken in by New Vocations are able to be re-homed as “riding sound,” Ford said, most within 60 days of being retrained.

Prospective adoptive owners must pass an extensive application and background check that screens for horsemanship experience and the financial ability to care long-term for a retired racer. New Vocations follows re-homed horses closely, requiring updates from new owners, which are then passed along to the previous owners who donated the horses into the program.

Ford said that a major change she has seen since New Vocations was founded in 1992 is that owners now are more cognizant about building equine welfare “exit strategies” into the business cycle of owning racehorses.

“It's dramatically evolved,” said Ford. “When my mom [Dot Morgan] first started New Vocations, there was nobody else out there working with rehabbing and adopting retired racehorses. We've gone from trying to convince people to do the right thing to now I'll get easily 20 calls a week, minimum, of people wanting to send horses to us.

“I think before, it was an educational thing,” Ford explained. “I think a lot of times on issues like aftercare, it wasn't that people didn't care, it's just that they didn't know. Well now, the issue of 'We don't know who to give the horse to or what to do,' is no longer a question, or it shouldn't be a question. There are plenty of groups out there doing a good job, and we all need funding.”

Ford continued: “Oftentimes, the horses that we get are going to require extensive rehabilitation time, and that's not cheap. The number one reason horses retire is injury. So I think the next step in this ongoing education is we really need to have these horses retiring sounder than what they are right now. If we can get owners and trainers to be a little more cognizant of knowing that maybe they really don't have to run a horse in 'just one more race,' they can retire them while they still have plenty of soundness left. That's going to make aftercare work even better, and groups will be able to take more horses that way.

“The equestrian world does love Thoroughbreds, but it's always easier for us to find a sound, healthy horse a new home,” Ford said. “That's not changed in 24 years. What has changed is it's harder to find a new home for horses that are more or less just a good 'trail horse.' If we're filled with all of these injured horses, it takes us longer to get those horses into new homes, and then we're not turning over as many horses as we'd like.”

When a horse is accepted into New Vocations, Ford said the first step is a thorough physical evaluation, which leads to a plan for rehab. The rehab phase can last anywhere from 30 days up to a year before horses move over to the training side of the barn, where they learn second-career basics like walk/trot/canter and, if able, small jumps to test for potential sport horse ability.

“As soon as we have a good read on what they're all about, what their movement's like, what their disposition is, then we'll start creating an idea of what they'd be suited for, and we'll put them up for adoption,” Ford said.

Romp, the former Breeders' Cup Marathoner, couldn't have been more demonstrative about what he wanted his second career to be.

“When we first got him, none of us will forget, because Romp jumped out of our indoor arena twice, which is like four-foot walls, so we knew right away he'd be a good jumping prospect,” Ford said. “He's done extremely well in Lexington with his adoptive owner. He's doing jumpers, a little cross country eventing.”

New Vocations has also taken in some fashionably bred racers who didn't participate in the Breeders' Cup. On Sept. 5, Ford welcomed Bill of Rights to the Lexington farm. The 7-year-old gelding is a full brother to MGISW Colonel John.

Colonel John finished his career as an earner of $1.7 million with his final start coming in the 2009 GI Breeders' Cup Classic. Bill of Rights, a 9-for-43 gelding with roughly one-tenth the career earnings of his older sibling, competed as recently as

Aug. 26 at Belterra Park for a $4,000 claiming tag.

Several weeks ago, when the breeder of both horses, Bill Casner, was in town for the Keeneland sales, he paid his namesake, Bill of Rights, a visit at New Vocations (Casner told TDN he relented on a long-standing policy against having a horse named after him when his wife suggested the patriotic-sounding moniker).

“As I'm unlocking the gate, Mr. Casner jumped the fence to go in and see him,” Ford marveled. “He was feeling his legs, saying, 'I can't believe how good his legs look,' and the horse acted like he really remembered him, which is pretty cool.”

In a separate interview, Casner said, “I hadn't seen Bill of Rights in a couple of years. He was claimed from us at Keeneland for $50,000 and I kept track of him through stable mail, so I knew where he was and how he was running. He was a pretty hard-knocking horse; a good, solid horse. The other day when I saw him at the farm he was sound, and I was very happy to see that he was still a sound horse. I was really very impressed with the facility. We've donated horses to them in the past. They do a great job and always work hard to find horses new homes.”

Ford said that Bill of Rights “doesn't look like his brother, but he definitely has that presence about him, and you can tell he's a very smart horse. He's about ready to move over to training by the end of the month. He was just a little light from racing, so we're giving him time to put on some weight.”

As for Speak Logistics, Ford said “we're not sure what he's gong to be able to do yet because he's so new to us. He's been sound, but he just developed a hoof abscess. We'll probably know what he's suited for in a couple of weeks.”

Whatever his new career might be, Plesa spoke appreciatively about Speak Logistics' shot at a rewarding retirement.

“New Vocations and Anna Ford are unsung heroes of the industry,” Plesa said. “This industry is a 'now industry.' Horse racing is not a lot different from human athletics. The difference is horses are dependent on people to support them for the remainder of their lives, and some horses have more to contribute other than to horse racing. Speak Logistics is not the first horse I've sent to Anna. I'm very proactive when it comes to aftercare. Some horses I place privately with other people, but she's been the go-to person to get horses adopted and get them a second career and make other people happy in other endeavors.” –@thorntontd