The Monmouth Park racing season starts May 9th. Owners, trainers, handicappers and fans are watching closely to see who will be the new two-year-old stars and what veteran horses will remain successful.
A pair of horsewomen running Second Call, however, take a much longer look at racing season as they work with horsemen to help ease thoroughbreds whose careers are over into a productive retirement.
From a thoroughbred’s birth to the track takes two years and for all the time, planning, training, money and waiting it takes to see if the genes have aligned for success, many thoroughbreds, who can live into their twenties, are done racing after four or five years.
“Many of these horses can have uncertain futures,” says Laurie Lane, who, with Jane Gilbert, is co-founder of Second Call thoroughbred adoption and placement at Monmouth Park.
Lane is the daughter of former jockey and thoroughbred owner Anthony Condurso and during the MP season, she hosts the weekend Dawn Patrol track tour and has done so for years. Gilbert, a thoroughbred owner-breeder is a lifelong horsewoman and former show rider. She is a rated show judge and serves on a number of equine boards.
Their program – Second Call – was founded as 501c3 nonprofit organization in 2012 to provide adoption and placement to horses racing in New Jersey’s and became the exclusive partner with horsemen at Monmouth Park. During a MP racing meet there will be more than 700 races involving literally hundreds and hundreds of horses, and many a thoroughbred’s careers can be over before it really begins, “ Lane explains.
Horses accepted to Second Call are first rested and evaluated before they are re-acclimated or as Lane says, “getting use to being a horse again.”
At any one time, Second Call can have more than a dozen horses under its care and can be involved with 40 or more during the season. “We work with a number of horse farms in South Jersey,” Lane says, “to rest horses and rehab them prior to the start of re-training.”
The program can work from top down or bottom up. Lane and Gilbert are at the track each week talking to owners, trainers and horsemen and learn of thoroughbreds whose career is coming to a close. Or, many times, owners and trainers seek out Lane and Gilbert as they look for a safe and honorable retirement for a sometimes very expensive horse who could be facing an uncertain future.
There are several steps to providing a thoroughbred with a new career or pastoral retirement and says Lane, “each step costs money.” She explains. “A thoroughbred is first evaluated by Second Call and veterinarian to see if it is sound and suitable for a new career. If so, the horse is moved to a R&R farm where the thoroughbred who may have spent the past two years in a stall, exercising daily and eating high protein feed, learns to relax and graze in the paddock.
“Once a high strung racehorse has learned to be a horse again,” Lane explains, “which can take weeks to several months, we start to re-train it for a new career with one of our training partners.” Second Call works with several groups in this process including South Jersey Thoroughbred Rescue and Adoption in Moorestown; New Vocations and After the Races in Pennsylvania and Bluebloods in North Carolina. “Many thoroughbreds go on to be show horses as they adapt to jumping and show moves well,” says Lane and Erin Hurley at SJTR. Hurley has retrained and found permanent homes for a number of Second Call thoroughbreds.
“Training a thoroughbred can take weeks to months,” says Lane, “and the cost just to keep the horse fed and housed during that time can be $300-$500 a month or more all covered by Second Call.”
Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation – started in New Jersey in 1983 by Middletown’s Monique Koehler is the largest equine rescue group in the world devoted to rescue, rehabilitation, retirement and retraining of thoroughbreds no longer able to race. TRF has rescued thousands of horses in its more than 30 years of existence. Susan Finley, editor and co-publisher of Thoroughbred Daily News in Red Bank, ran the operation for many years. Throughout its history TRF has helped find new homes for thousands of thoroughbreds and currently has more than a thousand horses under its care.
Second Call operates on a $50,000 year budget most of it comes from a $5 per race donation from each purse at Monmouth Park. The group also hosts fundraisers including an annual golf outing and accepts tax deductible gifts and donations. Last year Second Call also received a small grant from Thoroughbred Charities of America whose goal is to provide a better life for thoroughbreds during and after their racing careers.
Although this is only the fourth year of operation for Second Call, Lane and Gilbert have been involved in thoroughbred adoption for more than 20 years. They first ran a branch of ReRun a thoroughbred adoption group, before opening Second Call at Monmouth Park.
“Jane and I are both dedicated to finding new careers for these magnificent animals,” Lane stresses, “or if that isn’t possible a good retirement situation where they may be ridden for pleasure for years or in some cases a honorable passing.” Unfortunately, she explains thoroughbreds, at the end of their racing careers, like many other horses face possible abandonment, abuse, neglect or in the worst case sale from slaughter pens to be processed as food for human or animal consumption. “We take our work seriously,” Lane says, “and are working to grow Second Call each year, and cooperating with like minded groups across the state and country to do the right thing for these horses.”
For more information on Second Call, visit their website: sctap.com
Art Petrosemolo, Shrewsbury, has been photographing and writing about thoroughbreds for several years for local and regional magazines and newspapers. Look for more thoroughbred related stories from Art during the Monmouth Park Racing season in the Two River Times.
