Off Track Thoroughbreds

Blaine’s Storm had 73 starts and won just north of $100,000 when he retired in 2008, after racing at Suffolk Downs, to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation.

Blaine’s Storm caught a ride to his post-racing career as a tagalong.

The strikingly handsome bay gelding, who’d knocked in 73 races and earned just north of $100,000, wasn’t even on the radar screen when Becky Thayer pulled up in her trailer two years ago to adopt a different horse from the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation’s South Carolina facility.

But when she learned the mare Be Distinct had a deep attachment to Blaine’s Storm, and suffered separation anxiety when he wasn’t near, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “Okay, throw him on the trailer too. We have 100 acres and plenty of room for one more.”

And simple as that, Blaine’s Storm was soon bombing along the road alongside his girlfriend. He took a four-mile trip from the Waterree River Correctional Institution, where he’d helped teach inmates horsemanship skills through the TRF’s Second Chances program, to a private barn, where a young man would soon take his measure and see in him everything he ever wanted in a show horse.

Blaine’s Storm
Sire: Stormy Atlantic
Dam: Bonnat Ehrie, by Clever Trick
Foal date: Feb. 23, 2001
Earnings: $103,034 in 73 startsJacob Crotts, a summer exercise rider for legendary racehorse trainer Michael Matz, and aspiring veterinarian, spotted Blaine’s Storm the minute he arrived.

“He immediately caught my attention,” Crotts says. “He was very, very well put together conformation-wise. I saw he had a great shoulder, neck and head and when I found out he’d raced 73 times, I couldn’t believe it because his legs were in such good shape.”

Guessing the handsome gelding hadn’t had a saddle on his back since 2008, when he last raced at Suffolk Downs in Boston, Crotts decided there was no time like the present—and he went for it. “I saddled him up, and he was fantastic,” he says.

Soon after that first meeting in 2013, Crotts adopted the 15.3-hand Thoroughbred, and began foxhunting and showing him with great success.

In 2014, the pair won the green hunter division at the Camden Hunter Trials—it was a “favorite moment” for Crotts, who personally trained the gelding

Jacob Crotts says of his OTTB Blain’s Storm, “He just showed up out of nowhere… it was perfect timing.”

to jump. “He really impressed me with his jumping, right from the start,” he says. “He’s very scopey and very smart about the jumps.”

And on the fox-hunting field, he has proven to be a brave and happy warrior.

“Once he figured out that his job was to fly through the woods and jump, he loved it,” Crotts says, adding that he was “shocked” that a horse who caught a ride from the TRF, almost as an afterthought, would be the perfect match for him.

“He just came out of nowhere,” he says, “and I showed up when he needed someone. It was perfect timing.”

Dr. Susie Beck Davis visited Justice this past spring. It was the last time she saw him before his stroke.

On the day that Justice died, the bells stopped ringing.

The small, inexpensive chimes, which had once tinkled reassuringly and guided the 31-year-old T’bred through darkness after his vision failed, were now silent and still.

And a great horse departed a world made better by his presence.

Jingling from the halter of Arabian mare Blue Jeans before Justice died, the tinkling led him from one spot to the next, as he enjoyed his last days of a full life that began with a racing career, crested as a quintessential hunter schoolmaster and unbeatable show horse, and ended with the loving hands of children, who would spend hours brushing his bay coat.

But at the end of April, neither Blue Jeans and her bells, nor the children, could guide him further.

Race name: Justice for Barbi
Barn name: Justice
Sire: Mr. Justice
Dam: Barbizon Beauty
Foal date: Feb. 17, 1984He suffered a stroke on the Lesley Chapel, Fla. farm that had become his home, the sound of bells jingling next to him as his pasture pal put her head beneath his drooping face and tried in vain to lift it. The mare was led away, and the children sent home early so that the great horse die away from their sight.

And afterwards, a piece of his tail was cut and saved by his closest friends, and those silly bells were removed from Blue Jeans’ halter to be tucked away, forgotten in the barn where Justice was once so revered.

“I had him for 25 years,” says owner Dr. Susie Beck Davis. “The first time I saw him, I remember saying that I didn’t know what it was, but there was something special about this horse.”

And he proved her hunch time and again.

Justice, who is pictured with Beverly Levitt, grew to be a very old gentleman on her farm. Her charity, Healing Horses, One Child at a Time, faces closure in the wake of a major donor.

“Fast forward a few years, and he became the quintessential school master. He took care of everyone in his lessons. And he had so much talent as a hunter that he was unbeatable at his level in the Southwestern Florida circuit. He was a class act.”

Beyond winning ribbons, he put a fledgling riding facility on the map by winning droves of admirers and riders. The riders learned to ride properly or face a mild rebuke. And admirers marveled that a 3-year-old toddler could crawl under the horse and sit playing beneath his belly as he stood like a statue.

“I personally witnessed a young girl riding him in a lesson who wouldn’t stop yanking on his mouth. She was told to stop pulling his mouth, and trust him to do his job, but she didn’t listen,” Davis says. “So when she asked him for a lead change, he popped his hip so high while he changed leads that he popped her right out of the tack. He didn’t hurt her. It was nothing bad. But she was humbled when she got back in the saddle” and rode him correctly—lesson learned.

When it was time to retire the old gentleman, Davis found a place for him at Healing Horses, One Child at a Time. The small nonprofit charity pairs older horses, some abused, some unwanted, with children in need of equine therapy.

For three years, Justice enjoyed the affection of children of all ages, and the unstinting care of Beverly Levitt, the charity’s founder. In Levitt’s hands, Justice maintained such good health he looked far younger than 31. And on the day he died, Levitt was one of the last to put a reassuring hand on his white muzzle and tell him goodbye.

Later that day he was buried in his paddock, which he had shared with Blue Jeans. The bells are now silent. But a life was lived and the memories ring on.

—Author’s note: Around the time of Justice’s death, the certified nonprofit charity Healing Horses One Child at a Time lost a major funding channel. Founder Beverly Levitt announced earlier this month that her 14-horse charity would soon close its doors.