Susan Salk
Starving horses regain weight at Kentucky TRF
Two months after arriving at the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation’s (TRF) Kentucky facility, six starving horses, abandoned and later seized by Mercer County officials, have bounced back on the road to recovering their health. According to a report by Sue Finley of the Thoroughbred Daily News, the horses pulled from a farm leased by trainer Maria Borrell and her father in a highly publicized neglect case, have put on weight, and blossomed in the hands of inmates at the Blackburn Correctional Facility. (Please see earlier story here: http://offtrackthoroughbreds.com/2016/06/29/trf-takes-6-hungry-abandoned-horses-into-herd/). Linda Dyer, farm manager of the TRF’s Second Chances program in Kentucky— where […]
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He becomes an ‘Alpha mare’ to train OTTBs
Put a herd of 25 horses together for the first time, and after some kicking, biting, and a few flying tufts of torn-out hair, an alpha mare will emerge. In 97 percent of the time, after the dust settles, it is the female horse who emerges victorious as the leaders, says Mark Bolender ofBolender Horse Park in Washington. All devotion is vested in her, as long as she leads in a focused and consistent manner. But if she veers into inconsistent and unfocused leadership, the herd will turn on her and kill her. “Once she is chosen, an instinct will […]
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Death-farm horse heals the hurt of an inmate
About a year after Ollie (JC: Oligopolist) was pulled off a Virginia farm with 80 other endangered and starving equines, the chestnut Thoroughbred ex-racehorse whose future was so uncertain then now brings comfort to a prisoner who relates to the animal’s struggle and triumph. “He’s been through a lot,” says James River Work Center inmate William (last name withheld), an avid participant in a horse/inmate program offered by the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF, Inc.). “He had a hard life; he got the wrong end of the stick, but he turned out to be an awesome horse.” Oligopolist Sire: Mutakddim Dam: […]
