Off Track Thoroughbreds

Tim Brooks, a graduate of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation’s Second Chances program, has gone to work for Steuart Pittman of the Retired Racehorse Project. Pictured with Reds, an OTTB who changed his life.

A few hours in the sun and a little fresh air was all a former Maryland inmate hoped for when he signed up for a program that would teach him how to take care of Thoroughbreds.

Tim Brooks certainly had no lofty expectations, not of working among the horsey set, nor becoming the equivalent of the Central Maryland Correctional Facility’s horse whisperer.

But that’s exactly what happened when Brooks started working with moody red ex-racehorse Prince Tutta as part of his horsemanship training offered by theThoroughbred Retirement Foundation’s Second Chances program.

Noticing Prince Tutta’s pinned ears and the way the chestnut gelding, a.k.a. Reds, tried to take a bite out of other inmates, Brooks didn’t leap to judge. Instead, he felt his way by instinct, as one misunderstood being to another, and discovered the way into Reds’ heart was, in fact, the way into his own.

“When I first came into the program, I didn’t expect to fall in love with the horses or the work,” Brooks says. “I only signed up (for Second Chances) so I could get out of jail and do something constructive. But as time went on, as I started working with the horses, I started to see myself being in this field.”

Prince Tutta
Barn name: Reds
Sire: Grand Slam
Dam: Queen Tutta
Foal date: May 21, 2003And earning Reds’ trust along the way, watching the wary animal grow fond of him, made such a strong impression on Brooks that it was with this horse he chose to pose after graduating the program in December 2014. “Everybody would say Reds was a really bad horse; they said he’s a troublemaker,” he says. “But just being able to work with him the way I did, I saw he’s not a bad horse at all, man.”

And Brooks himself transformed right alongside that “troublemaker” horse.

“He started off a bit unsure of the horses. But soon enough I would see him in the stalls, just spending time with a horse, and it looked as if they were healing each other,” says farm manager Judi Coyne. Fighting tears, she adds, “To watch the transformation of an individual who leaves prison with a sense of well being and calmness all because of his interaction with the horses was, for me, incredible.”

Tim and Reds pose on graduation day from the TRF’s Second Chances program.

Coyne was so impressed with Brooks’ natural horsemanship skills —to this day she frequently calls to ask for tips in handling Reds and his many moods— that she convinced an influential horseman, who has built a reputation giving second chances to Thoroughbreds, to consider hiring Brooks.

As a result, Brooks graduated and went straight to for Steuart Pittman, founder of the Retired Racehorse Project, a program to help Thoroughbred ex-racehorses find new careers.

Working alongside Pittman atDodon Farm in Maryland, Brooks is learning the ropes of farm life —working with equipment and the horses—in a win-win arrangement that has given him a future he never thought possible.

“Tim truly loves farm life. Having been locked up in a cell, he never wants to go back there, and he doesn’t want to go back to the life that put him there,” Pittman says. “At first, my 80-year-old mother wasn’t thrilled about having someone straight from jail. But all it took was for all of us, sitting down for one family dinner with him, to win her over.

“Good people come from all backgrounds and all places. Tim is good people.”

And for Brooks, his new life on the farm, caring for horses with troubles of their own has surpassed all of his expectations that he had that day he signed up for the TRF’s Second Chances program in prison.

“I look forward to every day now,” Brooks says. “I love it here. And I love the work.” — Originally published on June 12, 2015

Selleria on the day she was rescued.

The mare’s bandaged feet oozed with abscesses, useless to deflect the blows that rained down upon her.

One sharp kick, and then another, came without mercy from a band of frightened horses who tore at the tattered coat of the weakest among them.

As she lay in the soft mud of the Hermiston Auction in Oregon last February, her life spiraled away.

“There were a couple of mares who stood guard over her, but the alpha mares were pretty relentless with the attacks,” recalls Mary Lei, founder of local rescue Rescuing Equines in Need(REIN), who watched in horror as the silent animal seemed to accept her sad fate.

She’d been dumped in the Oregon kill pen and left to cower, and to eventually stumble and fall as some onlookers laughed.

It hadn’t always been this way for the once-beautiful chestnut filly, Selleria.

A granddaughter of Storm Cat, she was born in Kentucky in May 2009. She grew to be glossy coated and full of promise, and she sold a year later at the fabled Keeneland Sale for $24,000.

Selleria
Barn name: Ria
Sire: Van Nistelrooy (Storm Cat)
Dam: She’s Mahogany
Foal date: May 12, 2009She began racing in 2012 at Santa Anita and a year later in September, after a 3rd place finish at Golden Gate, she fell off the radar and reportedly passed through several hands. Five months later she landed in the auction lot to face attack, ridicule, and certain death.

“When she was run through the ring … she was trying to hurry and she fell. People were actually giggling and pointing and laughing at her,” Lei says. “Though we’d intended to euthanize her there at the auction, I thought this was a pretty cool horse who deserved to be put down in a better environment than that.”

So Lei and her team bought padding for their horse trailer, and the young mare, despite her obvious pain, hobbled onboard.

It was, for Lei, one of the most emotional encounters she’s had at an auction. “Ria was gross, covered with ticks and lice and rain rot, and standing in eight inches of mud,” she says. “I said to her, ‘you’re pathetic,’ and hugged her neck, and she dropped her head over my shoulder to pull me closer. And for the first time since I’ve been doing rescue, I started bawling.”

Throughout her recovery from multiple abscesses and laminitis, Ria remained bright-eyed.

In the months that followed, Ria surprised one and all with her bravery and determination to live. In spite of her pain, she approached each day with a bright eye, her ears forward, Lei says. “I’m so impressed with this horse, and that she never gave up when a lesser horse would have,” she says. “Even covered in all that mud, that horse still believed she was some level of royalty.”

And possibly even a star.

Ria, her hoof ailments healed with careful care by farrier April Wolf of The Savvy Hoof, has been entered to compete in the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Showcase later this year in her birthplace of Kentucky.

Under the gentle training of Oregon horseman Stacey Riggs, Ria has been started on a path to learn dressage, freestyle trail riding, and other disciplines. “She’s a super sweet and very kind horse, and my goal is to work on a connection with her, and building back her strength at a rate she can handle,” Riggs says. “Ria beat the odds and recovered and the next step of her life has begun.” — Originally published on Feb. 27, 2015.