Off Track Thoroughbreds

Coaltown Legend is hugged by his original breeder and first race owner, Kate Feron.

The coal-dark Thoroughbred who had run so many miles and whose body had shrunk around protruding ribs, did not “die in the dirt” as some had feared.

Hope and change prevailed last week instead.

Instead of breaking down in his last race, as was predicted in conversations on social media, 9-year-old Coaltown Legend, an animal whose beauty still shone after years of dogfights and 64 starts, made it home to retire on the New York farm of his birth.

The turning point was a spontaneous appeal by Thoroughbred lover Deb Jones, urging people to pay attention and keep tabs on the horse, schedule soon to run at Penn National. Jones’ plea was first met with a murmur that led to a rumble and eventually grew into a movement to bring the horse off the track and back home to NY.

“(News of Coaltown) was posted on Facebook and Akindale reached out. By Wednesday it was settled and Thursday he was home,” says Akindale Rescue Manager Erin Chase Pfister, who credits the yeoman efforts of the gelding’s past owner Angelo DeFillipis, who worked in tandem with Brooklyn Backstretch writer Teresa Genero to negotiate for the horse’s retirement to Akindale, and to Pennsylvania shipper Althea Roy, who volunteered her time and costs to transport the horse, and to the animal’s original breeder, Akindale trainer Kate Feron.

Coaltown Legend
Sire: Jump Start
Dam: Avril a Portugal
Foal date: May 11, 2005
Earnings: $328, 084, 64 starts“There were a lot of people involved in this,” adds Pfister, who acknowledged the good that Deb Jones’ Facebook post did to illuminate a situation in which many had privately tried to help, but that only changed when horse lovers on social media began to rally round the striking, dark horse. Coaltown Legend finished fifth at Penn National July 19 after a slow start, and retirement was soon his.

There were many relieved past connections, and tears of joy when tired and weary Coaltown rolled into Akindale on Thursday.

Feron bred Coaltown Legend and named him in honor of her father, a non-horsey accountant who had a funny kind of fixation on the great Hall of Fame horse, Coaltown. She raced Coaltown Legend successfully until he was claimed away from her in 2010. After that, she frequently put out the word that that she would take the horse back to Akindale, no questions asked.

But Coaltown Legend passed from owner to owner, racing his heart out until last week, when he put in a poor run at Penn National. Though the horse was destined to be given to someone else, Coaltown Legend was turned over to representatives after past owner DeFillipis and writer Genero prevailed upon those involved with the horse to allow him to come home.

Coaltown Legend arrives at Akindale Thoroughbred Rescue last Thursday. His breeder and first owner weeps as she takes the lead rope.

DeFillipis explains: “I told everyone involved that this is a pretty well-known NY bred, that people loved him, and that he needs to be retired. I was pretty thrilled to get the horse released to me.”

And he was also relieved. DeFillipis, who owned the horse at one point, but was forced to sell him during hard financial times, says he kept tabs on Coaltown Legend, and spent a few sleepless nights worrying.

When the underweight racehorse arrived Thursday, Pfister says Coaltown was on edge. “It was as if he was thinking, ‘Now where am I?” she says. But overnight, his attitude changed.

“I think he remembers his home. By morning he was a different horse. It’s like he’s figured out that there’s cookies and hay and he’s going to be fed—he’s in really good spirits.”

As he reached his regal, dark head over the door of his new stall, playing with admirers, he accepted a knowing hug from Feron, who cried when he arrived. “To see him again, I can’t express what it was like,” Feron says. “He always had a special place in my heart. This was my special horse.” ♥

Author’s note— If you enjoy stories like these, please consider visiting the blog’s new store, Off-Track Products. Proceeds will help sustain this blog in the future, and go to charity.

Grady has always been the center of attention, even when he doesn’t try.

“Grady is a horse who was always getting attention, even when he wasn’t trying to,” says longtime Maryland horseman Andi Puckett with a chuckle.

And when Off-Track Thoroughbreds erroneously reported a few weeks ago that her well-known racehorse, who aggressively battled his way through 104 lifetime starts to earn $785,436, had turned up on Craig’s list, and was purchased by an Ohio woman, Puckett said she knew immediately what had happened.

“I’ve been in the horse business for a long time, and I’ve seen horses being misidentified before,” Puckett says. “I once met someone who insisted they had Two Punch, the famous stallion. I told them they might have a Two Punch, the son or grandson of the Two Punch, but that they didn’t have Two Punch.”

Grady
Sire: Prospectors Gamble
Dam: Petadear
Foal date: Jan. 10,1995
Earnings: $785,436, 104 startsSo when a well-meaning friend notified Puckett that her quirky and beloved ex-racehorse Grady, long retired on the Maryland farm she owns with her husband Dwight, appeared to be living a double life in Ohio, Puckett, with merriment and graciousness reassured her friends and concerned horse fans that it was not her Grady, but rather a different Grady. One purchased three years ago by Joan Jerauld of central Ohio.

Grady the war horse
The famous Grady is now living in his own three-acre pasture—by himself, as he prefers it, and takes occasional hacks with Puckett. In his heyday, he was a mean fighting machine on the racetrack, most notably running down Kentucky Derby winner Real Quiet in the 1997 Indian Nations Futurity Cup.

Thinking of her great horse’s life on the track sends Puckett happily down Memory Lane.

On the track, Grady was “the boss” of his own race, she says. You could hit him twice with a crop, but try a third time, and Grady would duck out and quit. He never wanted to run out in the clear. He wanted to be in with all the action, boxed in if possible!

These days, Grady enjoys a light hack with Andi Puckett, and a lot of attention.

“He was always one of the first horses out of the gate, but then he’d suck back to last place. He wouldn’t start running until he got to the top of the stretch, and then he’d take off,” Puckett says. “He wanted to be on the inside, in traffic, and he wanted to bump other horses. He wanted that action, that battle.”
Off the track, in retirement on the Puckett farm, Grady had no interest in cantering on the lunge line, or around a riding ring, she says.

“He hated lunging. He’d take two turns around, stop and just look at me like, ‘What are we doing?’ And working in the ring, he was bored. All he wants to do is go for walks. He likes taking trail rides and looking around. He’s very content. He likes to be groomed and fed peppermints.”

Peppermints and an enjoyment of grooming routines are two things both Gradys adore; however, the similarities end there.

Grady of Ohio
Jerauld’s 17.1-hand bay towers over the famous Grady, who is approximately 15.2 hands. And compared to the fierce racehorse, the Ohioan with the same name is a mellow guy happy to give pony rides.

Jerauld purchased Grady after reading his advertisement on Craig’s List.

Grady of Ohio is a 17.1 hand gentle giant. He is owned and loved by Joan Jerauld and her entire family.

“I saw Grady on Craig’s List and I think it was his story that made me want to go see him,” Jerauld says in an earlier interview with Off-TrackThoroughbreds. She believed the famous war horse was now on Craig’s List, and felt a little sorry for the old gent.

So on an oppressive summer day she drove out to the Ohio location where he was kept and took a test ride. He was perfect for her. She bought him on the spot.

Taking Grady was something she did to help the horse, and herself. Jerauld had survived two physical battles in 2009, first a broken hip sustained when she was knocked over by a horse, and later a diagnosis of B-cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. With the chemotherapy treatment behind her, Jerauld decided her next chapter in life would include the well-mannered 17.1-hand bay with white blaze.

When Jerauld later learned that her Grady was not the famous one, any disappointment or surprise she felt at first was quickly alleviated. After speaking with Puckett at length by phone, and sharing some laughs as they discussed their two horses, Jerauld came away from the experience feeling even more determined to uncover the identity of her Grady.

Estimated to be around 20 years old, Grady’s faded lip-tattoo, which is largely unreadable, was once guessed at by her veterinarian, who wrote the number as: 17350. Plugging in a combination of some of those numbers with a combination of birth years and her horse’s identifying marks, Jerauld has found a handful of horses who seem to match.

Grady photobombs a family shot with Jerauld, her daughter and granddaughter.

Though her Grady did not turn out be the fierce racehorse she thought she had, he did turn out to be the finest one for her family. “After talking with Andi I’ve decided I got the best one!” she says. “I can throw my grandchildren on my horse and trust him with them.”

And Puckett’s Grady, though never one to give pony rides, has won a permanent place in the hearts of the Puckett family. “He’s just a cool horse with a big personality,” she says. “Nothing bad is going to happen to this horse, no yahoo is going to claim this horse, and he’s not going to disappear.”

The story of the two Gradys even made Puckett laugh a little.

“I was talking with the wife of the man Grady was named after (Grady Sanders) and we were saying it’s unbelievable. This horse gets attention, even when he’s not trying!” ♥

Author’s note— If you enjoy stories like these, please consider visiting the blog’s new store, Off-Track Products. Proceeds will help sustain this blog in the future, and go to charity.