Every year for the past three years, more than 19,000 thoroughbreds have been foaled in this country. Our old trainer once told me that usually about 60% of them ever get to race, and of that number, only about 60% of them ever win a race. That certainly makes breeding a pretty risky business, especially if you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to breed a single mare to a single stallion. In 2020, there were hundreds of stallions used for breeding purposes, with fees ranged anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars to $225,000 per cover. The top three stallions each bred between 242 to 257 mares, and the next nine between 200 to 238. With this many horses each year being bred solely to race – since, let’s face it, no one’s paying $200K for a breeding session if they don’t want to eventually race the foal – it makes the odds of any of them winning the Kentucky Derby – which will, mercifully, be run this year on its traditional first Saturday in May – very slim.
But what happens to all those foals that never get to race? And what happens to all those others after they’ve been raced out and hung up to dry?
When I got my first race horse, the Gray Dog, Monsieur Leclercq, that question never crossed my mind. I was so excited to be in the game that I never considered what would become of him after his racing days were done. My partner in California, the Frenchman who’d bred the Monsieur, sent us another one at the same time, a filly named Bourg Royal that he’d also bred. She was a pretty three-year-old dark bay who started training the same time as the Gray Dog.
She initially showed much more promise than the Gray Dog did. In her first official workout that fall, she breezed in a very fast time, which got us rookies quite excited, but soon after that, she began to have physical problems. We gave her a layoff, and then another, but nothing seemed to work, and after a while we began to realize that the stress of training was too much for her, at least at that time. So we rested her through the fall and winter and brought her back to train that spring. After another excellent workout, however, the same physical problems cropped up, and after some debate we decided that it was in her best interests to stop trying to turn her into a racer. It was, naturally, a sad day for all of us, but she stayed healthy and remained a sweetheart through it all. Fortunately, we did not have to make the difficult choice as what to do with her; our California partner said he would take her back home and breed her so she could live out her years on his farm as a mom.
The Monsieur raced 32 times over three years, winning 3 of them. Not really what you’d call a profitable venture for us, but we had a lot of fun and learned a lot. But when he finished far up the track several times in a row, it was clear it was time to stop looking at him as a race horse. The decision on his future was upon us. Again, I was fortunate, as both our French partner and the breeder said he would take him back to California after first racing him one more time in Arizona to see if that he had anything left in the tank.
He didn’t, and after another woeful race, that was that. But he remained sound even after all those races, so our partner looked to find a second career for him. The Gray Dog was subsequently donated to a police department in Arizona and turned out to be a wonderful addition to their crowd control stable. He was well-cared for and loved his job, especially when he had to charge into a rowdy crowd to break it up. (It seems he did like some forms of running after all!)
Later, in a different partnership, we bought a horse named Guardayserf. He had broken his maiden at Gulfstream Park in Florida, but soon after developed a knee problem, which was one of the reasons he was available. Andy, our trainer, said he thought he could work on his knee, and, in time, he would be okay to race in Ohio. So, several months later, there we were at the track, excitedly watching our new 3-year-old’s first race. He went off as the second choice, battled the entire way and finished second by less than a length, earning a nice check in the process. We had to wait another month to race him as Andy worked on the knee again. The next time he went off as the favorite, but as they turned for home with him in the lead, the jockey suddenly began to stand up on him, as if trying to pull him up. It was obvious the horse was not traveling very well. But instead of stopping, Guardayserf dug in and the rider was forced to sit back down, a rare thing for the pilot riding a horse going 25 or 30 miles an hour to do. Other horses had already passed him, but he continued to battle and finished third. It was one of the most courageous efforts I had ever seen from one of my horses.
Guardayserf at the end of his third-place showing.
After crossing the finish line, though, he stopped cold, and we had to use the track van to get him back to the barn. It was the knee again, and now we had to decide what to do with him. We could have laid him off, treated his leg, and run him again; after all, he’d finished in the money in his first two starts, and he was easily gutsy and enthusiastic enough to get back out there if we asked. But I decided I could not put him through that again, especially with the prospect of serious or fatal injury forever playing in the back of my head. Guardayserf was a gentle little guy with a huge heart and deserved better. So I began a search for a new home for him. Other trainers offered to buy him, and we could have recouped some of the money we spent for him, but I wasn’t interested in sending him off to another trainer. He’d earned the right to have his career as a race horse come to an honorable end. The Internet was more or less in its infancy at the time, so I had to try to locate an appropriate home for him in other ways; as it happened, I knew some women who had often talked about a riding center for people with physical disabilities and mental issues. I called and offered this Guardayserf to them for free. After a quick visit to meet him, they joyfully accepted, and he went on to help and bring joy to many people. My hope is that he passed his courage on to them as well.
Not long after the Gray Dog, my California friend called again with another home-bred he had for sale. I put together another partnership, and we bought a 4-year-old unraced mare with the French name of Fabuleuse Molly. She was a well-bred, full sized robust mare who was also very gentle and a pleasure to be around. Remember that 60% figure I mentioned earlier? As good as Molly looked and traveled in training, she simply could not stay healthy. She never wound up starting a single race before we decided to cut our losses. Thankfully, Andy was able to find someone who was looking for a well-bred mare to breed, and Ms. Molly went off to become a mom.
As it happens, Monsieur Leclercq had a little brother, another gray, who had already broken his maiden in Arizona. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: we formed another partnership, and Brite Valentin was shipped to Ohio. To reflect his Gallic moniker, we gave him the barn name “No E.”
Brite Valentin by a half-length at Thistledown.
I’ll probably chronical Mr. Valetin’s racing history in another article. For now I’ll just say he was a barn favorite, a fun-loving horse who won 2 races of 8 races while we owned him and finished in the money 3 other times. Most of the races our horses ran were claiming races, meaning the price to purchase them is listed at each race and any trainer can claim them. To do so, he submits a claim slip to the racing officials before the race and takes ownership of the horse immediately after the race, regardless of the outcome. This is the part of the game that’s supposed to keep horses of equal value racing against each other. And it happened to us: No E was claimed from us one day after running fourth. The claimant was a trainer that I had little respect for; I felt he cared more about the money than his horses. After he ran Brite Valentin several times with only one win, I thought he might be willing to sell him back to me so I could find him a good home once he was done competing.
By the time I got hold of the trainer in question, however, he had already sold the horse to someone who planned to race him in Pennsylvania. I was crushed. I spent some time trying to find the new owner and make an offer to buy No E back when they were finished racing him. After several weeks, I finally found the new trainer’s address and sent her a note expressing my desire to get the horse back. Months passed with no word, and I figured he was gone by then; I could find no record of him racing in Pennsylvania, or anywhere else, for that matter. Then one day I got a letter from the trainer. She apologized for not getting back to me sooner and said that Brite Valentin was one of the sweetest horses she had ever come in contact with, but after a few middling finishes, she’d decided to retire him. Turns out she’d given him to a good friend of hers in Virginia who she knew would treat him well. I sent her a note thanking her for the update and told her how much I appreciated her concern for horses. Several months later, another letter from her arrived telling me that our little gray guy had taken to being ridden cross-country and jumping logs and the like – so much so, in fact, that he’d become the lead horse at Virginia Fox Hunts, and is, she told me, loved and respected by all. Could any horse have a happier or better retirement?
I’ve already written in the past about Turn of Fate, aka Dumbo, who only won one race but became a wonderful dressage horse ultimately worth a lot more than he ever won for us. In future articles I will chronicle some of my other horses and their post-career adventures.
I have always felt it was my duty and responsibility to care, to the best of my ability, for the horses I’ve owned after their racing careers were finished, especially considering all the effort they’d expended and the joy and happiness they’d provided me and our partners. Some ended up becoming brood mares or competition horses, and others were taken by caring people who made them pleasure horses or simply pets. Today, many owners have both the means and large enough farms to provide fabulous retirement to their horses. Many of the top-class colts and older horses go on to stand as stallions, while top-notch mares also head to the breeding sheds to hopefully foal classic winners, or at least contribute to improving the breed.
And there are many other, smaller farms dedicated to caring for retired race horses, and, as I mentioned, there are thousands of such animals. These not-for-profit operations include such places as Old Friends, the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, and the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, all of which rely on donations to care for these wonderful animals. So if you love horse racing and thoroughbreds, but cannot have one of your own, any amount of support for the aftercare of former race horses would be appreciated by any of the groups I mentioned, as well as by any similar horse-loving operation in your area.
As Sir Winston Churchill once said, “There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.”
