"Failed racehorses find future in eventing"
An article written by Jannet Patton
At this year's Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, while many in the crowd were following the competition's leaders, a few were keeping an eye on an up-and-coming gray Thoroughbred. Ridden by veteran equestrian Buck Davidson, 9-year-old Titanium performed an elegant dressage test, enthusiastically threw himself over each jump on the cross-country course and was one of only seven horses to clear every rail in the stadium jumping within the time allowed. "It's so cool to have a horse that didn't make it as a racehorse making it at our game," said Buck Davidson, who rode Titanium in the dressage event at the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event in April."It was the happiest 16th place I'd ever been," Davidson said. "He wasn't really ready for it, but he stepped up and did more than he knows how to do. ... It's so cool to have a horse that didn't make it as a racehorse making it at our game." Five years ago, such a future must have seemed unlikely for Titanium. But he's an example of what can happen when failed racehorses get another start. And it's the kind of transition many in the racing and breeding industries, horse sports and animal rescue organizations are working to make happen every day.
Flash back to the Fourth of July 2005. Titanium finished ninth in a field of 10, more than 14 lengths behind the winner. After a career that began at Belmont and Saratoga, the Kentucky-born Titanium had won only one race and less than $12,000. He had landed at State Fair Park in Lincoln, Neb., where he had just lost for the second time. On that day in July, anyone with $5,000 could have claimed him. Nobody wanted him, at least nobody in Nebraska. "This poor sucker's at the bottom of the barrel," thought Candi Cocks, who trains steeplechasers with her husband, William, in Camden, S.C. Candi Cocks had followed Titanium's career from afar ever since she spotted him in a 2003 sale catalog. As Titanium slipped down the racetrack rungs, Cocks had called his various owners along the way to say, if you ever want to sell him, I'm interested. Two years later, when he was finally unloaded in Camden, she felt like she had hit a home run. She hoped to make him a steeplechaser like his half-brother, Niello, but the kind-eyed amiable gelding just didn't have it in him. "I think he didn't want to run," Cocks said. But he liked to jump. "He jumped anything you put in front of him," Cocks said.
That got her thinking: Maybe he's really a sport horse. Being one-speeded is a bad thing in a racehorse but a good thing in an event horse. So she called a friend, Joanie Morris, who is with the U.S. Equestrian Federation and often scouting new equine talent, for an opinion. Morris took one look and was on the phone to Davidson, who bought him sight unseen. The no-hoper was reborn as a top-level sport horse. "This is what you want for horses," Cocks said. "Look at what he's doing. I'm tickled to death he found a career, and he didn't end up in the slaughterhouses. ... Thank God, I got him. God only knows where he was going to end up."
Diana Pikulski has a pretty good idea. For some, slaughterhouse is fate. Pikulski, executive director of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, was one of the fans at the Kentucky Horse Park in April watching Titanium and Davidson. Pikulski said organizations like hers help find new homes for 1,200 to 1,500 former racehorses a year. "My estimate is another 1,500 come off the track, need a place to go and end up going into a livestock auction," she said. For them, the next stop often is a slaughterhouse in Canada or Mexico. "Think how lucky that horse is," Pikulski said of Titanium. Pikulski follows the second careers of racehorses. She points out that like Davidson, many of the top riders have turned racetrack duds into eventing studs. At this year's Rolex Kentucky alone there was Olympic gold medalist Philip Dutton, who finished second on Woodburn, a New Zealand Thoroughbred, and sixth on The Foreman, a Virginia-bred Thoroughbred who won less than $7,000 racing under the name Four Across.
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"Talia" and Shelley Heckles going Novice at Plantation Fields (pictured below).
Shelley often finds and brings along young event prospects who have failed as race horses at the track. One of her personal event horses is a young thoroughbred mare who she aquired in 2009 off the track. Since then Talia has evented, paper chased and loves to go out cross country. Shelley has gradually trained her and moved her up to novice level eventing, competing very sucessfully. She has recent accomplishments of 1st place at Plantation Recognized Horse Trials on June 5th and 4th place at Fair Hill Horse Trials on August 8th. Shelley and Italica plan to move up to Training Level over Fall of 2010. Talia is a prime example how off the track thoroughbreds can go on to have succesful eventing careers after the track.
