Off Track Thoroughbreds

Multiple Choice in his racing days was known as a cut and dried horse who was versatile on turf and dirt. Photo by Adam Coglianese

Had he been human, he’d have been the hard working guy who avoids the water cooler, and wants only to be left alone at the end of the day.

Graded stakes winner Multiple Choice was just about as cut and dried as a horse can come, recalls longtime trainer Jimmy Jerkens, who says, “He was very professional with his training, but he never really wanted to be around people—he was even a little bit of a malcontent in the barn.”

But he was a hard-trying malcontent who took his work so seriously, says Jerkens, that for years after he was claimed away from him, he continued to race with screws in his legs.

Multiple Choice
Sire: Mt. Livermore
Dam: Lady of Choice, by Storm Bird
Foal date: Feb. 16, 1998
Career: Multiple graded stakes winner; $629,450 in 74 starts“He was a trooper. He was always game,” Jerkens says. “I always got the impression that he gave his best for us every time,” Jerkens says. “Sometimes it wasn’t good enough, but a lot of times it was. His honesty is the thing I remember most about him.”

Before he retired at age 9 to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation at James River, the compact bay gelding with the standoffish personality knocked in 74 races and earned nearly $630,000.

Jerkens trained Multiple Choice from ages 2 to 6 for owner Peter Blum, the gelding’s glory days. After breaking his maiden at Aqueduct as a 3-year-old he had a very exciting 4-year-old year in 2002, running 3rd in the Grade 2 Vanderbilt and the Grade 1 Forego, 4th in the Grade 1 Vosburgh and then capping off his 4-year-old year with wins in both the Grade 3 Jaipur and the Poker, switching to grass.

Versatile as an all-terrain vehicle, he performed well on both dirt and turf, doing his best at the 6- or 7-furlong race, Jerkens says.

Multiple Choice was named Mr. TRF in a 2013 pageant at Colonial Downs.

Though not a top sprinter, he was so hard trying that years later, even after he sustained a spiral fracture to his leg (running for a different owner/trainer team) he went back to racing with a workmanlike grit. “After his injury he ran at a reduced level, but he ran a lot after that,” Jerkens says.

Through the years he kept tabs on the small bay. At one point he considered claiming back Multiple Choice, but when that didn’t work out, he was purchased outright by a horse lover and retired to the TRF’s James River facility.

Though he dug in and pulled himself toward the winner’s circle for so many years, the wear and tear on his body did not diminish him at all. Aside from a tricky knee that bothered him from time to time, Multiple Choice arrived looking so well that when he next visited the winner’s circle of a racetrack, it was only to claim first place in a Thoroughbred beauty contest!

In July 2013, the compact 15.3-hand gelding was named Mr. TRF in a beauty contest sponsored by the James River branch of the TRF, says Anne Tucker, longtime member and supporter of the charity.

Multiple Choice was paraded up the Colonial Downs track, in between races, and voted by fans to be the fairest of all, she says. “Multiple Choice won the popular vote,” Tucker says. “And he was crowned Mr. TRF, and one of our jockeys hung a wreath around his neck, and in a very touching moment, announced that it was being done to honor all the retired racehorses.”

Though he was always the type of horse to prefer the company of other horses over anything else, on the night he entered the winner’s circle to accept the Mr. TRF award, it was with docile good nature that he lowered his head and accepted the admiration of all, along with a few carrots donated by Whole Foods, as his due.

—Multiple Choice is one of 900+ Thoroughbreds under the care of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation.

Tubby Time, the 2011 Canterbury Park Horse of the year, stands in a kill pen May. 7. He was rescued and following weeks of rehab, headed this past weekend to his forever home.

Tubby Time, the 2011 Canterbury Park Horse of the Year who was seized from a Pennsylvania kill lot in early May, traveled over the weekend to his new forever home in Ocala, Fla.

With more flesh on the bone and in overall better health than the day he was plucked from a destined death in a slaughterhouse, Tubby was carefully loaded onto a trailer in Michigan and shipped southward with Vicki Henderson of Double HH Ranch Transport.

Along the way, as the pair stopped at layover barns where Tubby unloaded, relaxed, and stretched his legs, Henderson posted photos of the one-time racing star who but for a fluke would have been dead by now.

Instead, following his rehabilitation at Beyond the Roses Equine in Michigan, Tubby was en route to live with a prominent equine attorney who asked that her last name be kept confidential.

Tubby Time
Sire: Devil His Due
Dam: Gentle Princess, by Tejano
Foal date: April 23, 2006
Earnings: $263,515 in 35 starts;
Multiple stakes winnerAnd late Saturday/early Sunday, Tubby found sanctuary with Laurie, an Ocala-based attorney and horseman who recently helped a client track down and retrieved Thoroughbreds from the slaughter pipeline, and thus, became inspired to help Tubby.

So moved by Tubby’s sad story, and by an early photo of the bewildered animal standing in a kill pen (please read earlier article here: http://offtrackthoroughbreds.com/2015/06/01/minn-horse-of-the-year-rescued-from-kill-pen/) that she stepped forward to offer Tubby a permanent home among her show horses and racehorses.

“When I saw his picture,” Laurie begins, fighting back tears, “it was just horrible. For some reason that I can’t explain, I felt a connection to Tubby. It wasn’t his fame— I have another horse who has won more money. I just knew it was the right thing to do.”

Laurie immediately contacted the rescue where Tubby was recuperating and told proprietor Gail Hirt that she could offer a permanent home.

Tubby Time heads to the trailer to take him to Ocala, Fla.

He thrived on the track according to his former owner Dorene Larsen, who spoke with Off Track Thoroughbreds in an article in June. Having Tubby wind up in a Pennsylvania feed lot May 7, the property of a meat buyer, was her worst fear realized, Larsen said.The bay Minnesota-bred, named after popular basketball coach Tubby Smith, was, in his heyday, a hard-trying racehorse who had the habit of flaring his tail as he crossed the finish line.

As she explained, she never would have let the horse out of her site if she hadn’t been confident he was headed for a good home.

“We took such great care of him,” Larsen says. “We loved him. And the only reason we let him go was because we were told he was going to a 14-year-old girl who would ride him in the hunter/jumpers. I never would have let him go for something like barrels, because it’s so taxing. But, when I heard that the manager of the farm where we sent him to layup after his last race had found a hunter/jumper family for him, I thought, ‘Oh my God, Tubby would love doing something like that!’ ”

Tubby enjoys nighttime turnout at a layup farm on his journey to Florida.

Laurie, his new owner, explains that the plan of action is to get him comfortable in a stall, have a complete veterinary workup, and allow him to acclimate at his own pace. In other words, she will let the horse tell her what he wants.Now Larsen and others who have worried about Tubby can breathe a sigh of relief. The 9-year-old gelding will live out his days on a Florida horse farm where he will get all the TLC he could want.

“It’s a matter of seeing what he’s comfortable with first,” she says. “I want him to feel comfortable moving around first, and I don’t want to put him out yet with my guys after what he’s been through. For now, he’ll be getting acclimated to his stall and paddock, and we’ll monitor him to make sure everything is working properly, and we’ll also check him for body soreness.”

Laurie’s decision to step up to offer a home was tremendously appreciated by Gail Hirt, whose small charity has at times been bursting at the seams with rescued horses. But to Laurie, her action was nothing compared to the hard work of rescue advocates who save horses from slaughter everyday.

“There’s a lot of good people out there trying to do the right thing,” Laurie says. “I’m only a small person in this, but I will make all the difference for this one horse.”