Inmates are top dogs in horse class; ‘super’
Five inmates who shed the prison culture, and worked together as a team to care for horses, just entered the record books as the top-scoring class to graduate from the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation’s (TRF) unique Second Chances program, which teaches inmates real-world job and horsemanship skills. So highly did they score on a recent round of testing— never earning lower than an A— that they are now referred to as the “super class” at the James River Work Center in Virginia, says Melissa Jensen, TRF farm manager. “These guys were so superior that we retained all of them, with the […]
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A white OTTB and boy gallop into new chapter
A pretty white snowball of a horse drifted from home to home until he landed softly in the hands of a 13-year-old boy. Scattering Breezes had been in some fine hands along the way, but when young Austin Skeens hopped on his back and trotted him two years ago, then cantered near the fence line of the gelding’s Salem, Va., paddock, the perfect fit of horse and young man was evident. And strangers though they were, the connection was instant, they got along famously. “We went to see him right before Labor Day, and he was such a mellow horse […]
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Smarty Jones son retires in a full-circle moment
A stakes-winning son of Smarty Jones was retired to former Three Chimneys communications director Jen Roytz this winter after a lengthy and successful racing career. In a development that brought her history with Smarty Jones and his son full circle, Roytz went from her earlier days writing about the talented 9-year-old gelding offspring of Smarty Jones, to owning him outright as of February. “I spent a good part of my early career at Three Chimneys writing about I’ll Show Them. This was such a talented horse that his breeder Glen Hill Farm thought he was going to be a Derby […]
