By Bill Finley
It was only a few days ago, on April 21 to be exact, that a horse racing at Thistledown sustained a slab fracture during morning training. That didn't mean that he had to be euthanized, but it could have. With many lower-level horses, when a career-ending injury occurs, the owner is often faced with a difficult decision, to either pay for surgery or have the horse put down.
But thanks to a recently launched initiative, the HISA Equine Recovery Foundation (HERF), there is another option. The owner can turn the horse over to HERF, who will retire the horse from racing and will do everything it can to save the horse, which in many cases, means they wind up going on to second careers. Some are sent to the Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital, where the surgeons perform the operations for free. All other costs of the care and rehab of the horses are paid for by HERF. Rood & Riddle is one of the many equine hospitals and surgeons that will be included in the HERF network.
The horse, who has picked up the nickname “Ryan,” arrived at Rood & Riddle the night of his injury, and surgery was performed the next day by Dr. Alex Curtiss. The surgery was successful and the prognosis was that, given time, Ryan would be a perfect candidate for a second career.
But the story was far from over. Ryan could not stay at Rood & Riddle indefinitely. He had to be vanned somewhere and someone had to take him in to get him through the recuperative period.
Ryan was vanned free of charge by Brook Ledge Horse Transportation and was taken to Denali Stud, where he arrived just two days after the injury occurred. Denali was taking part in HERF's “Empty Stall Challenge,” the brainchild of bloodstock agent and HERF board member David Ingordo, who has been soliciting farms to use empty stall space to take in HERF horses. Ryan is the first horse to take part in the Empty Stall Challenge program.
Any farm located anywhere in the U.S. is eligible to take part in the program, but having proximity within two to three hours from a HISA track, training facility and veterinary clinic is preferable. The farm must have experienced staff, especially when it comes to injured horses that require stall rest. Participating farms will be asked to host HERF horses to recuperate no more than twice in any 12-month period. The concept is for the Thoroughbred farms to each donate one empty stall so that the responsibility does not fall on any one farm. Every dollar saved from the cost of rehabilitating a horse (for an average of 6-12 months) is a resource HERF can put towards the next injured horse in need.
“We all know how important aftercare is,” said Denali founder Craig Bandoroff. “Fortunately, the industry is addressing that, but this is a vulnerable part of the population. And even in a very short time, which is only a matter of months, that the organization has been in play, we're already seeing these are horses that people would euthanize and shouldn't be euthanized. We're not dealing with the elites of the industry. These are horses that would slip through the cracks and they can still have a very useful life either as a future athlete or as a therapy horse. I think we all agree, we owe it to these horses to do whatever we can to ensure they have a good life. I'm proud of a lot of things in my career, but I think they'll always say that I tried to make the industry better.”
As it turns out, Ryan looks like a poster child for what HERF is trying to accomplish. His injury was something that could be easily fixed with surgery, and he has the type of temperament that will help him get through the recovery period.
“He's settled into the farm really well,” said Denali Stud Vice President Conrad Bandoroff. “He's got a great disposition to him and the outlook and the prognosis is excellent. It's early. He's only been with us for a few days, but he's quiet. He's an easy patient and we couldn't be happier with how it's going so far.”
From beginning to end, the farm will see the horse through the recovery process.
“He's going to have a 30-day period of stall rest, and then from there we'll do some hand walking,” Conrad Bandoroff said. “And then after that, we'll be able to start to turn him out into a round pen. From there, the goal will be to get him back out into some small paddock turnout. I'd say in about 60 days from now, he'll be looking at being ready to move forward in his rehabilitation and really start to take the next steps and be ready to move forward and go on and graduate from us.”
For Denali, this involves, time, expense, and the effort it takes to care for an injured horse. For Claire Bandoroff, who is Conrad's wife and Denali's director of marketing and hospitality, it is well worth it.
“It makes you feel good and good about what you're doing,” she said. “We are obviously in the business of raising horses and I think our whole team can speak to the fact that when they get to the track, if they are injured, you owe it to them to recuperate them. At Denali, we don't usually own a ton of racehorses or anything. So we feel privileged to be able to rehab Ryan and let him have another chance at life. It just makes us feel good. It's a proud feeling that we're able to do this.”
“He's a very, very sweet horse. I had heard that he had been sweet before we got him. I think these horses can definitely sense that you're saving them. I think that they have this appreciation for it. We're just glad to be a small part of the story, really.”
Once Ryan is done with his recovery he will be sent to New Vocations, which will be in charge of finding him a new home.
He's going to have a good life. For a undistinguished horse from Thistledown, it could have ended very differently.
Email info@equinerecovery.org to donate a stall or if you have additional questions.
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