We Love GLC!

Last week, Shawn Mclere from GLC stopped by the office. GLC is generous enough to donate Actistatin Equine for all of our wonderful equine athletes. We believe that all ex-racehorses should be on some sort of joint supplement, especially Actistatin for animals who have suffered any sort of injury. We've had our horses on GLC for three months now, and have seen a real difference. It is a truly beneficial product.

Our mutual admiration with GLC stems from our shared priorities and similar mission statements. Simply put, the health and happiness of the horses is both of our first priorities. If you decide to purchase GLC products (and we certainly encourage you to) mention the discount code SEC2011. This will not only provide you with a discount, but will send a portion of the proceeds from the sale back to the Secretariat Center.

You can catch Shawn speaking at the Kentucky Horse Council on October 27. While he was in, he decided to meet Zorro, one of our horses benefitting from GLC's wonderful product!

New Artwork in the Office

Matthew Williams was generous enough to donate a beautiful painting of our namesake. It is a breathtaking portrait of Secretariat in his quintessential win in the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, capturing the historical moment of Ron Turcotte looking back to try and find the rest of the field. The painting was done by Kentuckian equine artist Henry Koehler.

Come and see this gorgeous painting hanging in our office at the Kentucky Horse Park. And if you’re here already, come see all our wonderful horses available for adoption.

Open House!

Are you looking for your dream horse? Look no further! Come take a look at all of the wonderful Thoroughbred’s available at the Maker’s Mark Secretariat Center! Our Open House is this weekend, October 15, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. All of our fantastic horses will be shown by our professional trainers. Additionally, there will be time to take a closer look at any horse that catches your eye.

In case coming to see our amazing horses isn’t enough motivation, there will be discounted adoption fees on Saturday. Door prizes are being provided by our wonderful sponsors, including Cavalor, BET Labs, Perri’s Leather, Charles Owen, McCauley’s, the Kentucky Horse Park and Woodford Equine Hospital.

Come see our fabulous horses and bring your friends! Who knows, you may leave with the horse of your dreams!

Secretariat Festival

Gunner telling a new friend "HI!"

Howdy everyone and welcome to the Secretariat Center blog! My name is Andrea and I'm a student at Midway College. This semester, I have been blessed with the amazing opportunity to intern at the TRF - Maker's Mark Secretariat Center, an inspiring not for profit organization that reschools and adopts out ex-racehorses, a mission that truly makes a difference in the Thoroughbred racehorse industry.

This weekend, I helped spread the word and got to see our work in action! Saturday, MMSC set up a booth at the Secretariat Festival in Bourbon County. While the morning was cold and wet, the dreary whether was no indication of what was to come. The day turned out to be sunny and warm, the crowds plentiful and enthusiastic. The hours flew by and the day was one of the best experiences of my life!

We took 3 horses with us to help draw in people and show off what we have to offer. Fly Light, our mascot, has been saved from slaughter twice. Gunner Milligan made his first appearance as a mascot and did a smashing job at it, attracting admirers with his splendid coat, gentle demeanor, and his large, kind eyes. We also brought along my favorite horse at the Center, Iron Countess. She is a mild-mannered, bay, 4-year-old mare standing at 15.2 hands. She's also a comfortable ride, astoundingly soft, and related to Secretariat himself! But that's not even the best part... she's up for adoption!

The Secretariat Festival was really a sight to behold. There were vendors set up with everything Secretariat, as well as games and contests, and people from all walks of life and all across the nation and globe. People approached me from Canada, Nebraska, Georgia, Japan, etc. People were there who had been smitten about Secretariat so many years ago, as well as those who had fallen in love with him recently when the Secretariat movie came out. It felt wonderful to explain how we are making a difference and to play the role of teacher, answering questions, and sharing my knowledge of horses and passion for them with so many people.

Unfortunately, beyond the excitement of the racehorse industry, there is a dark side. These talented athletes don't always get the retirement they deserve. But the Secretariat Center is one organization working to change that. The realization that I am playing a part in that change made the whole event "awesome" in the most real sense of the word!

The Right Thing

On Thursday, Champagne Prayer was donated to the Maker’s Mark Secretariat Center. His story is one where everyone cared about the right thing: Him.
He is a beautiful black 3 year old gelding that simply didn’t run very fast. His trainer, Michelle Lovell, realized that racing was not his calling, and rather than keep him in training or drop him in class in claiming races, she shared her thoughts with the owner Jeanne Bruce. The owner, who had never raced one of the horses she had raised before, was saddened, but wanted the best for her horse and asked Lovell to find the him a wonderful new home. So Lovell contacted Larmon Cowles, farm manager of Gunston Hall Farm, and Cowles, an advisory board member at the MMSC called our director, Susanna Thomas, to ask her if she would come look at Champage Prayer as a candidate for the Horse Centered ReSchooling Program®.
Keen to have the MMSC interns learn all about how the Center works, Susanna asked me to come along. I was excited: Like the Keeneland sales, Gunston Hall was a glimpse into the racing industry which I had never had before. What I encountered was truly inspiring: a farm manager looking to do the best thing for a horse representing an owner and trainer who shared that goal.

Walking into the barn, we were greeted by several beautiful Thoroughbreds (one of whom may join us at the center too!). When we met Champagne Prayer, we were immediately struck by his stunning black coat and beautiful conformation. Larmon and Susanna quizzed assistant trainer Shalise and I on his conformation. Any flaws were beyond either of our detection. Larmon talked us through the details of his conformation, with all signs indicating that he is a great candidate for our program.

Then Larmon led the gelding out of the barn and stood him up so we could take conformation shots. Like every young horse (or young child for that matter!) Champagne Prayer, wiggled in place keen to be on the move, his black coat gleaming in the morning sun, his perfectly even mane flicking back and forth as he tossed his head, calling to potential friends in a nearby field.
And then, the best part: Larmon turned him out in a large field with two yearlings and a draft cross Overo paint, named Curious George. Champagne Prayer arched his lovely neck and greeted each animal with a deep sniff nostril to nostril. His front legs slashed out now and again in mock defiance at each whiff. He squealed a time or two, then twirled and ran, bucking playfully, goading his new buddies into a game of tag.

What a lovely thing to see him enjoying being a horse again, even when he gleefully found a patch of slick mud, and sullied his beautiful coat with a delighted roll from side to side on his back! There's a unique bliss to getting dirty for children of all species!
Susanna said that we would take him into our program at the MMSC after a short spell of R and R at Gunstun Hall. I can’t wait to see what he’s capable of, what career he ends up in, and who his forever person is. On the drive back to the MMSC, we brained stormed at possible names for a horse named Champagne Prayer: Pinot, Bubbles, Korbel, Tipsy Talk, and the like. But in the end, all any of us could think of was his striking black coat. So we settled for Zorro, the noble and dashing "black fox" of lore. Do you like it?

Step One: Keeneland Yearling Sales

My name is Erin O’Keefe and I am one of six new interns at the Maker’s Mark Secretariat Center. My focus will be on communications and farm management. On Sunday, September 18, our group attended the Keeneland Yearling Sales. What an excellent learning opportunity!

We began our day at the track kitchen, where jockeys, trainers, racing fans, and potential buyers leaned over steaming coffee and plates of eggs and bacon, debating the assets and liabilities of prospects in the sales catalogue. Our director, Susanna Thomas served as our translator into the world of bloodlines and black type. We learned what to consider in young horses, as well as conformation aspects to avoid. Once we had our crash course into the language of the sales, we headed to the barns to see what the yearlings really looked like.

As we wandered through the barns, we were able to examine horses, as well as see agents and prospective buyers appraise them. Our task was to identify any conformational flaws, as well as look for distinct traits from bloodlines. The more barns we explored, the better we got at it. When we headed to the sales ring, we gained another translator into the world of sales, bloodstock agent Hi Petter, who graciously shared his expertise about Thoroughbred racing with us. As we stood around the outside sales ring, we did our best to pick out the best horses headed to sale, and he pointed out where we were on track, or sometimes a little off in our assessments. Then we proceeded to the inner holding ring just before horses entered the pavilion. Here we saw prospective buyers taking last looks and watched sellers' faces as the prices on their horses either rose, or stalled. From there, we took a seat in the sales ring. Bid

spotters in green jackets watched like hawks for cryptic movements--a nod, blink, or flick of a finger against a lapel--all signals for rising bids while the auctioneer tried with a frenzied lilt to sweep prices higher still until, slam! the gavel fell. SOLD!

Onwards these sleek and beautiful animals go now, bastions of hope and potential, one step closer than before to the racetrack. So many unknowns ahead--including perhaps, some day, a stay at the Maker's Mark Secretariat Center when there racing days are over.

Just Across the Road: To Hagyard!

March 29, 2011

By: Courtney Zimmerman

For our final internship fieldtrip, we interns and Melissa, the Educational Programs Director and Volunteer & Adoption Coordinator of the Secretariat Center, ventured just across Iron Works Pike to Hagyard Equine Medical Institute. While driving through the entrance to the facility, the first thing we noticed was the large banner on the outside of the building declaring that Hagyard is “The World’s Oldest and Largest Equine Practice.” I have lived in Kentucky for almost four years and I never knew that Kentucky was home to such a famous institution. However, being the self-proclaimed Horse Capital of the World, these findings really should not surprise me anymore.

We proceeded to the Equine Pharmacy and were greeted by our two tour guides, Nicole and Anna. As we began our tour, we learned that Hagyard’s pharmacy not only can make and fill their own prescriptions, but also compound them. The benefit of compounding means that the lab can mix different medicines to alter the taste or composition for the unique needs of certain horses – a process that proves much more efficient than shipping out prescriptions to be completed by other facilities.

After visiting several of the barns they have, most of which can stable 30-50 horses at a time, we trekked inside the surgery prep room. I was taken by how large and complex the operation equipment for hoisting these large animals around the building was. The reality that horses require hydraulic lifts and machinery to position them for even the simplest of surgeries and treatments puts small animal clinical care in less-than-daunting perspective.

View of Hagyard's campus

After visiting the surgery prep room, we made our way to the back of the campus. We then walked into another large surgery room with several hallways leading into it. Down one of these hallways, there was a specialized stall that filtered oxygen for rare equine breathing problems. This therapy was made possible by owners of a horse afflicted with respiratory issues from a donation of over $100,000 to Hagyard.

We then met some equine patients and several foals that were born with some special problems naked to my untrained eye, at least. What was clearly obvious to me, however, was the Guinness beer that one vet grabbed out of the fridge and poured into a mare’s afternoon meal. We learned that Guinness is good for horses too, as alcoholic drinks not only help a horse increase his appetite, but are also useful for horses that suffer from anhidrosis, a condition that inhibits their ability to sweat.

Lovely day for a Guinness

We wrapped up our tour by going into a room consumed by a large hyperbaric chamber. Being around horses so much now for this internship, my immediate thought upon entering the chamber was from a horse’s perspective: oh, what a big and scary white alien monster-thing that looks like it’s going to eat me! (Alright, I took some liberties there, but you get the idea). This hyperbaric chamber is not very common in many vet practices with cost being a factor, but is a valuable oxygen therapy treatment in treating acute or chronic injuries. As the chamber fills with oxygen, the horses receive an increased amount of dissolved oxygen in their plasma, reducing tissue swelling and delivering an oxygen shot to damaged tissues. Horses can have several treatments that last up to an hour for rehabilitation.

As we thanked our tour guides and made the short trip back to the Maker’s Mark Secretariat Center, I reflected on how intriguing it was to finally visit a real equine vet practice. Those visits occur surprisingly little for non-horse owners such as myself. I was impressed by all the large instruments and advanced technology Hagyard has. What a huge difference between the tiny vet practice that I take my own cats to back home in Cincinnati. Until one personally delves into the economic commitment that comes with owning a horse and keeping it healthy, I don’t think anyone can fully comprehend the amount of money that is shelled out by horse owners to care for their beloved animals – especially in Kentucky! It makes me appreciate that ALL of the horses at the Secretariat Center – and the Horse Park – are extremely well-cared for. It just exemplifies the fact that the Horse Capital of the World not only is a mecca for horses, but a resource for them as well.