Addressing "Aftercare": NTRA Safety and Integrity Alliance Forms Retirement Subcommittee

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) Safety and Integrity Alliance announced today that it has formed a special subcommittee focusing on the aftercare of retired Thoroughbreds.

The goal of the NTRA Safety and Integrity Alliance Subcommittee on Aftercare will be to work towards a national solution to issues surrounding retired Thoroughbred racehorses, including enhancement of aftercare funding and improvement of compliance and best-practice standards for racetracks and other industry participants.

“Our aim is to bring together the many outstanding leaders who do so much on behalf of our retired equine athletes,” said Mike Ziegler, Executive Director of the NTRA Safety and Integrity Alliance. “Through cohesiveness and cooperation among all parties, we think we can create a model that can make it easier for racetracks, owners and others to provide retired Thoroughbreds with a happy and productive life after their racetrack days are over.”

Members of the NTRA Safety and Integrity Alliance Subcommittee on Aftercare include: Madeline Auerbach, California Retirement Management Account (CARMA); Anna Ford, New Vocations; Liz Harris, Churchill Downs, Inc.; Lucinda Mandella, CARMA; Diana Pikulski, Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation; and Mike Ziegler, NTRA Safety and Integrity Alliance.

Information on the Alliance, including the Alliance Code of Standards, can be found at www.NTRAalliance.com.

The committee members and links in this blog post represent only a few of the organizations working hard to help racehorses find new jobs and new homes after their racing careers are over. Organizations can be found in most areas of the United States.

The Book for Derby Week: "Black Diamond & Blake" Tells Kids Where (Some) Horses Go After the Racetrack

by Fran Jurga | 1 May 2009 | The Jurga Report
We all deserve a second chance, right? If you believe that, give some thought to the horses whose races won't be televised on Saturday when the Kentucky Derby spectacular pulls Americans to their televisions for their annual dose of horse racing. Think about the horses who run on Tuesdays. In the second race. On tracks far from the freshly-painted twin towers of Churchill Downs.

Debbie Blumenthal was thinking of those horses when she wrote the story of Black Diamond and Blake. Black Diamond is a successful racehorse whose career starts to go downhill. While he could have been bound for a slaughterhouse, Black Diamond finds himself instead at a strange type of farm: a prison farm that is quite unlike the horse farm where he grew up.

Lucky for Black Diamond, he strikes up a friendship with a prisoner named Blake and he blossoms under Blake's care until the bittersweet day when Blake's sentence is served and he's set free.

What will happen to Black Diamond in the hands of the other prisoners once Blake is gone? And what will Blake do with his new skills in horsemanship in the outside world? This book is timely, with all the efforts going on in New York and elsewhere to help retired racehorses.

Black Diamond and Blake is written and (beautifully) illustrated as a children's book but this story carries a wallop of a message for anyone even peripherally involved with racing or horses of any kind.

The book was published by Knopf Books for Young Readers this spring. If author Debbie Blumenthal's name sounds familiar, it is because she has been the longtime beauty editor of the New York Times.

Debbie told me today via email that she had no previous relationship with Thoroughbred retirement until she wrote this book. "My inspiration for BLACK DIAMOND AND BLAKE was a New York Times article that ran in April of 2001 about the horse-care program at Kentucky's Blackburn Correctional Complex. The program was started, as you probably know, by the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation.

"I'm a city-girl -- from Manhattan -- and before I read that story, I had no knowledge of the fate of many racehorses after their glory days at the track were over," she continued. "It just seemed like such a smart idea to have a program that both saved racehorses and saved men, offering both a second chance at a new and better life."

Debbie also brought my attention to the fact this this year is the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, and this book will certainly be a great building block in the celebration of their many accomplishments--the prison farm program is only one of many!

Consider this book for your gift-giving list or as a prize or award at shows and events. It would make a great fundraiser for your local horse rescue organization or racehorse retraining program. The list price is $16.99 and the book should be available through any independent bookstore if you supply the title, author and publisher name.

Kentucky's Maker's Mark Secretariat Center Helps Racehorses Begin a New Life

by Fran Jurga | 23 January 2009 | The Jurga Report at Equisearch.com



Darley Newman, host of the PBS television series Equitrekking, is usually off somewhere exotic, riding through vineyards or trotting up a mountainside in some place where I'd love to be.

Recently, though, Darley took a trip closer to home and visited the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation's Maker's Mark Secretariat Center at the Kentucky Horse Park outside Lexington, Kentucky.

In this brief clip, Darley interviews Susanna Thomas about the prospects of King Dee, a big gray Thoroughbred gelding who escaped slaughter but has needed many hours of careful, thoughtful rehabilitation as he begins his new career as a riding horse.

If you are headed to Kentucky and plan to visit the Kentucky Horse Park, make the center part of your tour. The center welcomes visitors between the hours of 9 and 2, Monday through Saturdays, with interactive demonstrations on Saturday mornings from 10 to 11. To contact the Secretariat Center about horse adoption, call 859-246-3080.

To learn more about Darley and her tv show, look not much further than where you already are. Darley is my fellow blogger here at Equisearch.com, and you can follow her adventures on PBS and watch for her posts here, on her blog.