2013 pre-Derby favorite retired with famous help
A 2013 pre-Derby favorite, who sold as a yearling for over $400,000, was claimed and retired this summer in an all-out effort backed by Triple Crown winning trainer Bob Baffert and famous trainer Larry Jones. Baffert wrote a check immediately upon learning his former racehorse War Academy, a stunning mount whose own Kentucky Derby bid was derailed, was now running in a $4,000 claimer. According to Thoroughbred advocate Dreux Flaherty of Texas, Baffert only needed to hear her words, “I’m calling about War Academy,” before he quickly asked, “Where is he?” And then followed up with the pledge to offer financial […]
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Presque Isle Downs to offer 30+ horses for sale
The Presque Isle Downs & Casino will join CANTER-PA next month in a first-time joint effort to match retiring racehorses with prospective buyers. During an Oct. 1 Showcase set for the Erie, Penn. racetrack, roughly 30 OTTBs will be presented to the horse-buying public in an event designed to help less competitive racehorses get a hoof up in their next career. The venture to aid trainers and horsemen in their efforts to find new homes for horses who, in many cases, have been lightly raced, was trail-blazed by Monica Travers of the track’s Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protection Association (HBPA) and […]
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OTTBs now halfway across US on endurance ride
California equestrian Valerie Ashker recently reached the midway point of her 3,500-mile, cross-country ride, raising awareness for those invincible, courageous off-track Thoroughbreds. Riding her OTTB Primitivo, and accompanied by her boyfriend Peter Friedman who is riding OTTB Solar Express, she stopped to snap a picture of a giant road sign, which proclaimed New York and San Francisco to be equidistant at 1,561 miles. “We’ve passed the hardest, most crushing part of this ride,” says Ashker, 60. “I think when I started this journey five months ago, people didn’t think I could do it. Now that we’re almost to Missouri, people […]
