S2 E17: How Turning For Home & the PTHA Transformed Thoroughbred Aftercare at Parx Racing

S2 E17: How Turning For Home & the PTHA Transformed Thoroughbred Aftercare at Parx Racing (Transcript)
[00:00:00] Hi everybody, and welcome back to OTTB on Tap. I'm Niamh. And I'm Emily. Hey Niamh, what's on tap today? Today, we're thrilled to have Danielle Montgomery from Turning for Home, an incredible thoroughbred aftercare organization doing amazing work in the OTTB world.
Over the last 17 years, they have developed their retirement program through Parks Racing to rehome OTTBs in second careers. We're so excited to have Danielle here to share her story. And talk about what sets turning for home apart. And at the time of this recording, I've just found out that I've been accepted to the retired racehorse project with a turning for home graduate, go green alongside my barn manager and her turning for home horse.
Kingsville. We can't wait to represent your organization. Welcome Danielle. Hi ladies, thanks for the invite and go green! Yes, go green indeed! We're here to have go green eagles! Go eagles! Yes, certainly. It feels a little serendipitous. Absolutely. Also, thank goodness Niamh was accepted. Yes! Yay! Could you imagine if they were my parents?
It's so embarrassing. All right. So Danielle, let's dive right in. To start, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your role at Turning for Home? Sure. As I'm the program administrator for Turning for Home, and I've been into horses my whole life. My family's owned horses for generations.
I found out just my last conversation with my dad that my great grandmother had horses in Newfoundland, and we've pretty much every generation. I come across this horse gene. I know you know what I'm talking about, the horse gene that you can't not have them. Yeah. Yeah, I come across it pretty honestly and my dad, he was in rodeo and we did, game shows as a kid, which was cool. We did 4 H and my, I guess I, I learned at an early age that racing the clock is the way to go. It's the most fair thing. So we, we didn't have a lot of money, we didn't have the silver saddles and all that kind of stuff.
But, I grew up barrel racing and then I fell in love with thoroughbred racing because it just. It just seems like the most honest, straightforward sport. And, I love it. I love teaching kids how to ride and having fun with their horses and just doing a little bit of everything. I don't know, I that's where I got into thoroughbred racing was at game shows. So we were at a game show and a friend of mine was working at Atlantic city and I was probably 16, 17. I just got my driver's license. And he's you can get a job at the track. So I did, I went to Lansing backstretch back in the eighties and I went to the racetrack and over the years I worked under some great trainers.
Eddie Broom right here at Parks Racing, Mark Lyon, Joe Orsino Roger Atfield, Bobby Kamak. I just started at the bottom, which is definitely the way I think everybody should start. Machine girl, hot walker, groom assistant trainer, and I started galloping horses right here at Parks and so it's a lot of fun.
I've had a lot of fun and it's just been something that's my heart. I love the horses and I love racing. That's so cool. Yeah I don't know I, went up and down the East Coast. I trained in Maryland. I broke babies in Florida. I worked at the Meadowlands, which is a whole nother experience.
Oh wow. It's been all over. Yeah, and I worked in Ocala for a while. I really think anybody that's going to learn to gallop horses should start breaking babies. , they're not as tough, and you still have to have a seat with babies, so I think it's a good, they're not pulling your guts out, and you really, they keep you honest.
Babies if you can get on an older horse, they're like getting on a freight train. You know what I mean? They're going to do their own thing, right? They're just going to go. But, learning to break babies, you can see where you need to build your skills up. I recommend, anybody that wants to start galloping, start with babies on the farm.
And I did that. I did that in Ocala, and it taught me a lot. And like I said, we trained horses and we went up down the East Coast and then eventually I wanted to start a family and I was at Philadelphia Park, where we're year round, but, a lot of the racetrackers went from track to track, and you just knew that wasn't a way to start a family.
My husband and I bought a farm in South Jersey, and I raised my kids there, so I stepped away from the track for about 10 years. And it ended up being You know, serendipitous thing because I learned a lot of the skills that I need here to do turning for home, the business admin part of it, I learned and, but I had, this back skills of what the horse is.
I raised my kids and, for 10 years I was the basketball mom, the soccer mom, I did all that stuff, but I learned a lot in a construction office about, billing and things. skills and things. And then my husband got hurt and, I got that phone call at work and that was a really scary time for me.
And he was really hurt. He lost a lot of use of the hand. And, we went through a couple of years of just, it was scary. So I went back to my racehorse family because if you've ever been on the backstretch of a racehorse, of a racetrack, we are a family, we.
other all day. We hate each other. We fight because each other out. But at the end of the day, we, we respect and we love each other. And so when I was in that kind of spot where I had three young kids and I was worried about losing benefits and stuff, I came back to racetrack just to be a vet assistant.
I was thinking, I'm not sure if I want to gallop again, I figured I could get a job, as a vet assistant. And of course I didn't get that job, but when people heard that I was, I just got captured by the PTHA and they were like, this job, we're looking for somebody and we think you'd be good for this.
And I was like, okay, I'll apply. And that was that. And that was 2013 and I've been here ever since. No, that's really cool. You sound like you have such a. I don't know robust amount of experience, but I'm always fascinated talking to any guests that we have that has that real hands on experience of breaking babies, galloping up the track and, they know those horses inside and out and they speak their language.
Fluently, which we always talk about, how you're learning to speak a new language when you're working with off the track thoroughbreds, and so you're somebody who knows both sides of that coin, which is always very cool. For our listeners who might not be familiar with Turning for Home, [00:06:00] what's your mission and how did the organization find its way to collaborate with parks?
Turning for home's mission is pretty straightforward. We want to provide safe, responsible retirement options for every thoroughbred that races at parks. And, it started out with a New York Times front page that had a big front page of a racehorse, that was in a kill pen.
And ironically, it wasn't even a thoroughbred. It was a quarter horse, but it was still a major wake up call for our community. And so the horseman realized wow, this could really have an impact. On us, and we need a better aftercare system, and there were a few different, rescues that reached out, to our executive director at that time, Michael Bilesi, and they talked about different options, but it was really Michael Bilesi that sat down and With his forethought like just put down the funding mechanism figured out how it really could be done and That whole stipend thing.
It's been duplicated now across the industry to the TIA and a lot of farms it was It's the racing director at the time South Sinatra, who's now with the with Haisa and Michael Bilesi and all of our horsemen and a couple of rescue organizations. And they sat down, they said, this needs to be done.
And they talked about how it could be done, really it was the horsemen that just, got together and backed it and said that, we can do this. And we have to do it universally. That's the biggest thing that I think Turning for Home can say is that we're had the first jockey colony that contributes to aftercare.
They give us right now 50 per race. So that's great. The horse breeders, it's not just the racetrackers. The breeders know that they have an absolute responsibility to aftercare. So they donate since the beginning a good seed money towards turning for home parks, racing said, okay, we're in, this is great.
, we need to. Take care of our horses that take care of us. And the big thing is that we didn't want to let any horses slip through the cracks. So turning for homes, whole attitude is that we don't leave horse behind. And since then we recently had our 4, 400th horse, which is an amazing milestone.
It really is. That is incredible. That's just a really incredible story. Just to have everybody come on board and, it's interesting because we were talking about this with Kyle from Merworthy and just this new trend of this becoming more of the rule and less of the exception where now, trainers, breeders all have this collection of resources.
There's almost no excuse really for horses to be slipping through the cracks. But I think like you're saying by being really inclusive of maybe this horse needs a little time off. Maybe this one's only pasture sound and really taking the time and energy and funds to make sure that each and every horse has a soft landing is something that everybody should be building their model after because like you say, there's a big responsibility when you've bred this horse, you've put all this time and money into it to get it to its first race.
You can't just forget about it when it's no longer. Bringing you money, I really love hearing how this is like all inclusive. It's very cool. And I think it's interesting, the breeders are accountable for their horses. And I think, sometimes maybe breeding is expensive, and I think sometimes maybe breeders don't get involved in this until they're in their later years and it takes three or four years to get a horse to the races.
And sometimes you might see a horse running and that horse is 10 years old, which means that's. That breeder made 10 years ago. So if he's in his sixties, when he's finally had enough money to be able to do breeding now he might be seventies and eighties and people are, and they're like, Oh you still need to be accountable for your horse.
And, you see a lot of that on the chatter on all the socials. But, my thought about that the other day was think of this, whether you're thinking about any animal, how many people are breeders? But it's a very tiny percentage of people that actually breed, any kind of livestock, right?
And it's a huge amount of people that benefit from that livestock. So if you think about it that way, all these people that are like putting all this pressure on their breeders to be accountable for their horses. I think it's an unfair scale because these breeders are producing an animal, just forget about horses, it could be cows, it could be goats, it could be dogs, it could be anything.
They're breeding, litters of animals that benefit everybody, thousands and thousands of people. We all benefit from the sacrifices of the breeders yes. They should be accountable to the point that they can be, but I think it's unrealistic to really put that much pressure on them. Oh, you brought this down on the world.
You're responsible forever. And only you, because it's not fair. When you think about how many people benefit from the joy of life. We talked about this a little bit in our last recording, knowing more about the industry and understanding the claiming process and the.
The paper trail of where these horses go, which is why it's so important to keep a paper trail of them and have organizations like yours is that you can find out who the most recent owner was. And I really feel a lot of the impetus should go to the most recent owner, not necessarily the breeders. And a lot of the breeders do step up when they are properly notified.
They're probably not going to be happy if somebody comes out looking for them in a witch hunt, but I'm sure many of these breeders would be willing or Open to working with somebody if they weren't just being attacked. But yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I get calls every day. I got a call the other day from a breeder who's worried about her horse.
Imagine this, he went from stakes race company to now he's running for 25, 000 claiming. And she's I'm a little worried he's coming down the ranks. There's most people are, even maybe not even just breeders, but people that had the horses in the early days, they are tracking these horses and they want them to end up in good places and but I think, as an industry, we have to realize it's always not just one person that's responsible for that horse.
It's a whole bunch of people that are responsible. responsible for every horse. And I think if nowadays, like when we first came in, our job was to stop slaughter. We didn't want our horses leaving the backstretch to go to the easy out to the kill gun or whatever. I don't think that's [00:12:00] so much the case.
I think we've ended that pipeline straight from the racetrack to slaughter legally and through just, morality. We've definitely put teeth in our contracts to say that we're not going to tolerate that. I think nowadays, if horses end up at slaughter, it's not our horsemen that send them.
So we've won that war. But we do always try to educate our trainers and force our rules and, let people know it's retire them in good time so they can go the right places. But, the horses are still gonna end up in bad places for a whole myriad of reasons people get that get them.
So it's a constant fight, but I think it's one that we're winning as far as, the industry is. Yeah. Agreed. Was there a specific moment or challenge in the industry that inspired you to join or create Turning for Home? I did not create turning for home. It is so much bigger than me. But , when I was younger, I wish I had known more about rescue. We just rode and re home thoroughbreds because we loved them.
And my role at turning for home really came about like I said about because my husband was injured on a job and I realized that we needed a more reliable income and benefits. And that led me back to my parks family and the P. T. H. A. Board saw that I might be a good fit for this. So I guess They found me and from there, this has just been the right place.
It's my backstretch family and I love what I do. That's amazing. Since those early days, how has turning for home grown or evolved? And are there any milestones that you're particularly proud of? El Hermano just came in as our 4, 400th horse, that's really cool. Wow, that's pretty exciting.
And that's a first full circle thing because that El Hermano was bred by Equivine Farm. Oh yeah, it's right down the road from us. Val McNeely, yeah, wonderful people, a beautiful farm. It's beautiful. And I'm really excited to announce. They've decided to become a partner firm of Turning for Home.
Oh, cool. So El Hermano was bred by them and Silvino Romero retired him the other day to us and he needed surgery just to remove a chip from the top of his sesamoid and I don't know how familiar you are, but, an apical sesamoid at the top, if it's taken out and you can prevent it from interfering with the suspensories and all that mess, he has a great prognosis to be an athletic.
Warrior, and he was a warrior at the racetrack. When I saw that Equivine had bred him, and I saw him come through, and I had talked to Carol Black, who works there, and Val had said a little bit about getting into aftercare, I called them, and I was just hoping and praying maybe we could start a partnership with the source.
And they said yes. That's so great. I am super excited that, we've sent him. So he went there last Saturday after his surgery at Mid Atlantic Equine. And so he's there with them and he's going to rehab with them and, they're going to see how our program goes and our contracts and stuff like that.
And then they're going to take another horse shortly coming up and we're going to start a partnership with them. So really exciting how, like we were talking earlier about just connections coming together. That's exciting because they're a Pennsylvania farm. We are a Pennsylvania racetrack, and we want to stick with that Pennsylvania agriculture, and so now we're up to 30 approved farms now, so having more farms means that we can place horses more efficiently in the beginning we were very strict about our farms, they had to be non profit, and they had to have all these credentials, but they couldn't handle the sheer numbers of horses. We get over 300 horses a year retiring from parks. So we've made adjustments to ensure that we can meet every horse's names without cutting corners. So now. We have this amazing, eclectic community of experienced, like minded partner farms that genuinely care about matching their horses with the best home possible.
And I love our group because they really work all well together. They're in this for the right reasons and they work well. So if a horse doesn't work well at one farm they can chat only even amongst themselves. I don't even have to get into the middle of it anymore. They'll, make sure that they get that horse to the right place.
When you talk about milestones, 4, 400 is a great number, but every adoption is a milestone to me. And each one is two worlds coming together. They're all working together so that the race horses get that happy set. Second career. And the important thing is that each of those adoptions builds a relationship to where owners and trainers can trust us.
And they know that we're going to go to that extra extreme to make sure that the horses are okay. We can, by having trust of the owners and trainers, they're giving us better horses were not We've seen what happens to aftercare organizations that are only getting the really broken horses.
It's really hard to get adopters to come to you. We get a nice influx of really nice horses and , we do everything we can to do with them, so then the owners have more confidence in us. They've raised our stipends, which help us help more horses. We can improve our facilities and We don't have to be like so stressed about which horses can receive surgery or should we not I pretty much can tell mid atlantic's our main equine hospital right now, although we do in this area, new bull in and Hogan over New Jersey.
And, if we send some horses out to Kentucky or to Florida, we work with their vet organizations. But if they tell us that, Hey, we can fix this horse and make his, prognosis for an athletic career better, we can do those surgeries. So that's what's fantastic about it is that we don't have to stress so much about denying any horse So it's a full circle, everybody benefits we work together People have rehorse race horses forever.
But now we're making sure a hundred percent that nobody slips through the cracks there's no reason for any trainer or owner at parks to just Discard the horse or let it go to a bad place because we're here, right? We're here for the ones that it's okay If you're selling your sound horse in the racetrack or you're taking the breeding shed or doing whatever you want But you know if your horse needs help and you [00:18:00] can't do the surgery yourself, we're here There's no reason for any horses to slip the track.
So I think it's pretty cool. And You know, we were just a great equine community and you guys see it, right? A castle rock farm, . Yeah, June's is passionate about her foals the day they're born. And when they're done racing, she's just as happy to bring them back and spotlight them into the next career.
She's amazing like that. It's really cool because we've been there now. I guess just over four years. So we've been fortunate to see a couple of the horses come back through the program and, or just come back to the farm after they're done racing and getting to sit on a horse that you saw as a foal on our farm is so cool.
You should be like, Oh, do you want to get on this one? I'm like, yes, because I remember it when I was a baby. This is so cool. So yeah, it is. We are really lucky to have a bird's eye view of just the entire process of a thoroughbred's life. I think that's why we have so many breeding farms that are turning for a partner farms is because of that reason.
Yeah, they get it. Yeah. A continuation on that, because I think you just spoke to this quite a bit, but what would you say really sets Turning for Home apart in the thoroughbred aftercare space? Are there specific programs or approaches that you are especially proud of? I think if you want to just think of if you were on the outside looking in and you wanted to say, what is a rescue, and you think of somebody that just stands out and anybody that needs a horse, they come in.
I think turning for him is different because we're on the inside. We're right here at the racetrack. We're not just accepting the horses were the answer. We're the hospital triage. We're right here and the vets know we're right here and we're, we know these horses, we love their owners, trainers, grooms.
And if a horse needs something, we can move quickly. We're right here on the grounds. I've gotten a call from the vet that says, Hey, this horse is colic in this barn. They don't have the money really, sometimes they're just totally invested or they're just, scared that, they don't have money for the hospital bills.
We've sent the horses right from here to go to surgery and then they're retired, they're turning for home. But, we can do all that if an owner can't risk it. And they don't think the horse is going to run again. We're right here. So that's where we're a little bit different because we're right here.
And I think we save more lives that way. So I think last year we invested over 43, 000 in surgeries and, And our vets work really well with us right now. A lot of the diagnostics are done in advance. I remember going out in the barns when I first started and doing all these extra x rays and screening x rays and stuff.
And now with all the advances with high set and the state vets, a lot of the x rays are on diagnostics are already done when we get them because they're so specific. We're here and we can help out and if they need surgery or a big rehab, we can set that up. If the horses show potential for upper level of venting, we have the partner farm system where we can send it to a farm that specializes in that.
And if it looks like, It might be a little Western pony. We have Western riding farms. We have smaller, more hands on farms for horses that need a quiet lifestyle, like a companion home. And we can really work with our, like I said, we have 30 farms, so we can really specialize where they go. And I think that benefits the horses.
Yeah, like you said before, too, that sometimes you don't know how a horse is going to react to a particular environment. And, we do make a lot of generalizations about certain aspects of post track life, but really they're all individuals. And so it's nice that you guys have the ability to change things up if it's not quite.
The best environment for the horse. And I think that's really cool. You answered this question a little bit just now in your answer, but can you talk a little bit about how the partnerships with The farms work and why they're so important to your program. Yeah, it's mostly, like I said, just that partnership, then being able to specialize with the horses.
So if it's an eventing type horse, it might go down to full gallop and Aiken. If it's a Western horse, it might go to one of our farms that do a little Western riding and barrel racing. And as you've seen it, Castle Rock with June, our partner firms love these horses as much as anyone can.
Even though I can't predict here at the racetrack, that's another thing, the transition from the racetrack to an adopter, you really need the partner farms. we skipped over that part, but the important thing is you can't come to the racetrack and gallop a horse.
You can't come in, get on them and see how they go around in a ring. So that's why we send them to the partner farms, right? Cause as long as I've been here and as, as much as I've seen these horses they always make liars out of you. I can say, Oh, this horse is so sweet and quiet and it gets home and it's jumping five fences, or I can say, yeah.
And if I was just trying to sell horses right off the racetrack, which is why I don't even know. I don't know why people try to do it. If you're trying to sell your horse right off the racetrack to an adopter, there's no way to really know that horse is going to do that discipline that person wants.
As long as I've been here, it's an impossible task. They always make liars out of you. So the farms actually can let them decompress, get time turned out, not just rehabbing their injuries, but also mentally, so you can see the kind of horse they are and treat the immediate things, the ulcers, the feet, the, all the stall bound stuff.
And so I think the farms are the most important part. With the partner farms, they can come out and they can say, Hey, this horse is going to do this. And maybe you didn't know this horse is sore behind. I think it's more than just a little, hind end soreness. We're going to get an x rayed and all that.
I think that is the important thing is that the partnerships can. If you want to see exactly what the horses are going to be, they can work them through all the little rehab stuff and they can really give you an accurate read on what the horse is going to do. So then the adopters are happy because they get to build a relationship with farms they can trust that they know they're going to represent our horses and the horses are the winners because they're not getting pressed into something and it doesn't work out.
They have no place to go there. You could find out the farms while they're safe [00:24:00] and you can represent them well to the adopters and then they're getting the care and everybody's doing the right things. Yeah, we've all seen horses change very dramatically from the racetrack to even just a day or two right at the farm.
Sometimes they get quieter. Sometimes they get a little bit more wound up. It's hard to tell until you really do it. Yeah, so that's the partner farm thing is they definitely need that mediator in the middle to really figure out where they're gonna go. And this train for home own the horses or does the partner farm then own them?
So as the horses leave the track, we have an agreement with the partner farms where the ownership transfers to the partner farm But we have stipulations in there that we have to know where the horse goes, They can return the horse if it doesn't work out But there's a whole contract that goes between us and the partner farm so that they're going there, but we have the added of our horseman's group to help them.
So if I send a horse to farm, I say, Oh, he's sound, he's great. And then two days later, he's limping around. We're going to pay for those veterinary valuations. We're going to, figure out what it is. If the horse is at the partner farm and, we do a lot of surgeries, so there's complications sometimes.
simple castration isn't always a simple castration. They can call it and have to go back to the clinic or so we'll pay for that for them to go back and get the support they need or the extra diagnostics that they need. So you know, we do a lot of support for the farms. Absolutely. It's important.
That's really great. You explained this a little bit, but how does turning for homework with the partner farms to ensure that the horses receive the best care and training for their second careers?
And in addition to that , how do you keep track and make sure that everybody's. doing the right thing at these partner farms. We have veterinary evaluation forms that go out to our veterinarians that, once a year, mandatory they'll let us know, what they think of the farms.
It's confidential. It comes right from the vets to us. We have our shippers. Yeah. So we, we keep tabs on them that way. I'm talking to my farms every day on my way into work. I told you I have a two hour commute. So on my way into work, I'm talking with the farms all the time. What are the horses doing?
I have a giant board in front of me when I'm at work that. That tells me each horse is to each farm so that I can see, if they've been adopted, who they have, do I get worried that they've had too many horses too long? Do we have to give them some extra marketing support?
We have a check and balances with our applications and with the contracts that come back. We have shippers. You've met Joan a million times. How many times does she bring horses out? But our shippers, they look around while they're there and make sure everything looks good.
And of course it's a huge horse. community. If things aren't going right, we're quick to step in and take any horse back for any reason. So it's all about communication and trust. Our farms, they have strict standards of care that are recommended by the AAEP and the industry.
We check through everything and I think that it's just important that, you only work with people that you really trust and then you have integrity. And it's very simple. If somebody doesn't do something with our horses that, we think is the right thing, we just don't send them horses.
It's very easy. We've had a lot of small farms come and go, but the group of our partner farms that are still with us. Most of them have been with us over a decade. June was with me right from the beginning in 2013. She took her first batch of horses from turning for home. Maui Meadow Farms been with us for 10 years.
Kelly Lopton, Universal Performance Equine. They were in New Jersey, then they moved to Florida a couple years ago. They've probably adopted out 500 horses for us, and I know where all of them are, and we follow them from one home to the next, and we have our full papers with the jockey club.
They're all stamped retired from racing and they all have a turning for home stamp and anybody could go to the jockey club retired racehorse registry and see a copy of their full papers and know that they came through turning for home. If one of our horses is out there, they call us and they say, either, I have a horse I got this horse.
I didn't know , where it came from. I was turning for home. They call us we can tell them the history of that horse and make sure the horse is safe. And like I said, between our contracts and even if people don't honor the contracts, we still have this full paper stamp turning for home.
So if anybody looks up any of our horses, they can see it was a turning for home horse. And we have a lifetime. Bring them back. Guarantee that we'll take back any of our horses for any reason. So all they have to do is deliver it to the nearest partner farm. So that's how we keep them safe.
And it's all about just trust and integrity and just trying to keep people accountable. I don't know if a lot of our listeners know this, but you can actually go into Equibase and Pedigree Query and add notes to certain horses. So if you have a horse that's been on the track you can add information that says either you're the owner or this is what the horse is doing now or where it's located.
And I think it's actually a pretty cool resource that maybe a lot of people don't take advantage of. I just did an interview with a group in the UK and I wanted to know more about the breeding on a couple of the horses. And so I looked up one of them and I clicked the little info button and it showed the whole track record of the aftercare.
Company that, rehome the horse, what the horse is doing now, and so on and so forth. And I was like, this is happening all over the world. This is really cool. So that's definitely something you can take advantage of if you have a horse off the track. You can go to the , to the jockey club.
And if you click on the thoroughbred aftercare button, you can actually keep horses in your stable that are in your care, which I was like, wow these horses are in my care. That's really fun. But you can go look at that. And you can, say if you want to be, put your name on their papers for aftercare, which we get a lot of papers, from the owners.
And sometimes they'll say, we want to make sure, we want to make sure that we're notified of aftercare. A lot of times I'll call the breeders and they'll be like, you have it. It's okay. I don't really want the horse back, but if the horse ever needs safe landing. can come here and sometimes we'll reach out to people to be like, no, I really want this horse back when it's done racing.
And so we'll honor that and we'll try to, make sure that horse gets back to somebody that wants them. [00:30:00] So yeah, the jockey club itself has a lot of resources and they have their traceability initiative with the new digital papers. We can put the owners on for every change of hands.
So you can see now on the Jockey Club digital papers, that it came to Turning for Home. It'll be on there forever and ever. And then, what partner farmer went through and then the change of owners. So hopefully down the line as people look up those names it'll be even easier to track the horses.
I know a lot of people are worried now because they're not. Lip tattooed and it's just microchips, but more and more people have the readers and more and more people are realizing it's just, any vet comes out, click, boom, you can look it up. And if you put that microchip out there, you can find the horse.
So it's important. And I think it's going to help in leaps and bounds now with the accountability and the traceability. So switching gears a little bit, can you share any specific stories of horses that have gone on to do great things after their time at a partner farm? There's so many.
There's so many. So if I want to get personal about it when, over the last few years, my daughters, they're in their 20s now. But in the early days nobody ever wanted those little plain bay mares. Everybody always wanted , the big, handsome, flashy geldings and stuff.
And we would bring those little bay mares in and we would make, because I told you I grew up in gaming and barrel racing, we would make them barrel horses. And even the girls, the RP, my daughter went. With Little Red Rodeo to the RP and she finished second, with the Little Bay mare.
And all of a sudden we were like, Oh, you use thoroughbreds for barrels and you use thoroughbreds for Western stuff. So I think that's where my heart lies is with the horses that like nobody really wanted them when I first started. But we were able to. Make different paths to new careers for horses, not just 100 jumpers, but also the Western sports and there's little may Bay mares that nobody wanted excelled there.
I guess little red rodeo, we're talking about RP earlier. She went, she did really well. She actually went twice because she ran second when my daughter took her the first time. And then in the mega makeover was the year that they did the chip championship at the RP for the Western disciplines.
So , in 2020, Megan Montgomery took her RP horse was David Slingshot, and then she had brought back for the tip championship, Little Red Rodeo. So she had the two horses running there for the tips, and that year at RP She, I think she still has the fastest time ever run a RP for the barrels with David Slingshot.
And then she brought Little Red Rodeo. So you know how they do the two runs. So one night she won on David, the next night she won on Red, but she messed up their other runs. So she didn't win the cumulative thing and Laney won the whole thing. It was just a lot of fun and little Red, she's now at my farm.
She's pregnant with her third foal because when my daughter was out at, she went, took her to college. She went to the University of Kentucky and she took Red out with her and she did the Kentucky rodeo team with her, but she got hurt in the paddock. And this is one of those things where, she stepped on something out in the pasture and it went up into her joint and she had a joint infection.
And those are bad. There's a lot of horses put down for injuries like that. But, luckily Megan was, UK
The Vets at Haggard really worked with her, and they did all these infusions and tons of money and work. Then a time later, Megan saved that mare. And she brought her to a Kentucky stud, so she has a two year old colt by, hit at a bomb that she's broke now and he's galloping nice and he really does move over the ground pretty.
So we have high hopes now for a racehorse and a little red rodeo. Tessa, Yeah, it's he really moves nice. So she's excited about that. And then, she's pregnant too. She's a yearling by Capo Cain and she's pregnant again to Capo Cain and Meg's looking to follow her out in Pennsylvania. So that's probably like there's little Baymares and Little Red Rodeo started like the whole thing where now we've got a sweetly talented that my older daughter took to the NFR and she actually like she was fourth her rookie year in the first frontier circuit.
It's just so amazing to me because I grew up in the rodeo world. It was always quarter horse, thoroughbreds can't do this. But we prove that, a thoroughbred little Bay mare can go win everything. She beat the best of the best at different races and she finished fourth for the year.
And then she got invited to the NFR invitational, which she bombed when she was out there. She had some things going on when she went out there, but she's going to make a comeback this year. She's had EPM, she's had. Stifle problems like little things that come along, but the mayor is doing great right now.
And, . It's fun watching, court thoroughbreds, compete in the quarter horse world. And then finally my last little bay mayor is Nancy. And if you follow the training for home, you've seen us blast her a bunch of times. Last year, this time of the year we do the horse world expo in Harrisburg.
Yeah. And she Ashlyn brought Pansy with her and, did a little bit of all the expos and, just spotlighted him. But then Ashlyn Tate is a high school student and she does National High School Rodeo. And she took Pansy, who is a war horse, and she took her to qualify in all four events for the high school rodeo.
That's unheard of for a quarter horse, let alone a thoroughbred. But she did go tying and qualified, which means she's a top. I think it's the top three of the state gets to go out to the nationals. She qualified in goat tying in roping poles and barrels. And so she represented like none other.
Yeah, so I love it. I love this little Baymares and they do great. And then finally we have, We have our Sophie on Star of Midnight, and she is actually, we're going to help sponsor her to go four star level this coming year, and that's in inventing, and that's Kate Goldenberg from, another owner, trainer, breeder from [00:36:00] Pennsylvania, the heart of our organization is our owner, trainer, breeders, because nobody knows thoroughbreds like them, and Kate, took on Star of Midnight, and Sophie's been riding her and just been a great representative of the Thoroughbred breed. Little Baymares with some star power. They're, that's my heart and soul. A little fun fact. I actually bought my very first Thoroughbred in 1996 from Kate Goldenberg. And I, oh wait, that's the same person?
Yeah. Yeah, I ended up taking him up through the advanced level of eventing and over a decade later, I found her phone number. I decided that I'd gone through horses, decided to go to school, get back into horses, et cetera, found her phone number, called her up out of the blue, said my name. And she knew immediately, she said, Oh, you bought smoky fire.
15 years ago, it was unbelievable. It was really surreal. That is why we've actually been talking about having her on the podcast because I've known Emily for, almost 15 years now. And obviously Alex was such a huge part of her life and, got her to the upper levels of the sport and everything like that.
But she talks a lot about the experience of buying this horse from Kate and I know. And that was a very long time ago and I. Still remember words that she told me in my head, so she's an incredible person. You should absolutely have Kate on here. I always tell her she needs to write a book.
I think she's definitely my idol for Thoroughbred Aftercare. She was doing it way before it was cool, she was way before it was cool. And she's just amazing. Even now I watch her take a student to a show and she just knows what to say to them and knows immediately what the problem is, like sometimes just breathe.
Yeah she's really cool. I guess we have to do it now. I was like, this name sounds familiar. And then as soon as you brought that up, Emily, I was like, Oh my God, this is so exciting. I feel like I know this woman already, so I'm excited. I'm just looking through the photos that you included with your your notes.
And. We love nothing more than a track photo and what are they doing now photo. So it's always so fun to see that. Yeah, we would absolutely love to share these if we can. Oh, sure. Yeah, that's Flannery there. And she's done four star eventing with a young girl now. She's just, she's another one.
Flannery's a little engine that could, and she went down to our farm in Aiken. Full Gallop Farm does all, a lot of our eventers. Beautiful down by her too. could see, she could jump. Did did Jason Hillman's horse come through Turning for home? I thought so. Speaking of little brown, plain mares Yes. My goodness, that mare is she is just proving everybody wrong about what they can and cannot do. We just love watching the two of them.
They are such a joy to watch together, oh my gosh. And it's so fun because I feel like Brandon, she needed a rider who was going to be so soft with her, but also was going to say, but we can also have so much fun. And so watching him develop as a rider, like what she's taught him and what he's taught her over the span of a couple of years, it's so beautiful to watch together.
Like they are a match made in heaven. And I just like. It's adorable.
Hey guys, we're actually going to split this episode into two parts so you can enjoy the whole super long recording that we did with Danielle. We had so much to talk about. So catch us tomorrow for part two of our episode with turning for home.
, thank you for tuning in. Be sure to check out Turning for Home and support their amazing mission.
And follow me and go green, please. If you liked what you heard today, please leave us a five star review on Apple podcasts. You can follow OTTB on tap on Instagram, Facebook, and Tik TOK and contact us with interview candidates and topic suggestions at OTTB on tap. com. We love hearing from you until next time.
Cheers.