Off Track Thoroughbreds

Montgomery (JC: Yudash) showed for seven years at the Hampton Classic and beyond before helping the next generation of riders win ribbons who know him by his new nickname, Fanta.

A 25-year-old OTTB who made a successful run at the Hampton Classic in his heyday, before downshifting to a lesson horse career at a Connecticut show barn, made an appearance at HITS Saugerties this week to carry his favorite advanced students over the jumps he loves to conquer.

Showing no signs of stopping, and looking far younger than his age, Yudash traveled from Daffodil Hill farm in Woodbury, Conn., to HITS Saugerties, N.Y. to compete for the blue ribbons with all the verve he once displayed while taking home top honors in Long Island.

“This is a very special horse,” says Jessica Thomas. “He’s been my lesson horse for several years now, and he’s wonderful in his own special way.”

Yudash
Show name: Montgomery
Barn name: Monty
Sire: Noble Nashua
Dam: Native Anna, by Native Charger
Foal date: April 7, 1991He doesn’t “do” beginners, and needs to be ridden correctly. And he rewards good riders by giving his all to win a blue ribbon. And woe betide to anyone who has to deal with him if he should actually lose a class. “If he doesn’t win, he gets very upset, even angry,” Thomas says, adding that hard as it might be to believe, this horse knows when he hasn’t won. And he’s a bad loser!

Fortunately for the handsome OTTB, the wins have come in more than the losses.

After a short race career, which ended at Finger Lakes in 1995, Yudash showed under the name Montgomery (Barn name: Monty) for longtime owner Renya Stein, marketing manager for the Hampton Classic.

Just before her 13^th birthday the admittedly “very nervous rider” purchased the OTTB she nicknamed Monty after falling off during their very first ride, Stein says.

“He wasn’t completely trained when I rode him for the first time. I actually fell off. But, I wasn’t scared, so that’s how I knew he was perfect for me,” she says. “My trainer found him for me. I only tried one other horse but chose him because he was just a straightforward horse. He was dead quiet. We didn’t even lunge him at horse shows!”

Renya Stein, marketing manager for the Hampton Classic, owned Montgomery for 10 years, showing and winning impressively in Long Island.

Over the course of 10 years, the pair advanced from children’s hunters to adult amateurs, and won many ribbons and accolades to boot.

Among the highlights, Stein and Monty qualified for the Zone 2 Hunter Finals, regional championship, for two consecutive years in 1999 and 2000. In 1999, he was reserve champion in the Long Island children’s hunter and grand champion at three show circuits in the Long Island area, she says.

The pair competed at the Hampton Classic from 1997 to 2005, proving to be a talented package. The 15.2-hand Thoroughbred was a bit of a ham during his off hours, but easily found his “competition” gear when he entered the ring. “I loved his personality,” Stein says. “He was very playful … and had a great temperament. And in the ring, I could point him at a jump and know he’d take me to the other side. I was a very nervous rider, but I never had to worry about him spooking at fences.”

Never was his bombproof attitude more evident than it was during practice sessions with their trainer. One day, in frustration at Stein’s tendency to override her horse, the trainer took her reins away and started yelling at Monty. He didn’t spook; and kept right on working.

Though she no longer owns Monty, she follows his progress with pride. “He went to a horse show a month ago and won ribbons,” she says.

Now, the older OTTB his days giving lessons and fulfilling childhood dreams of a next generation of equestrians.

“He’s a great horse,” Thomas says. “He is the best horse who could have every come my way.”

Charles, right, ponies Exaggerator to the winner’s circle after the 2016 Preakness. Photo by Caris Photography and courtesy Kimberly Godwin Clark

The stately gray OTTB who pranced last month alongside 2016 Preakness winner Exaggerator, looking every inch the well-turned-out pony and the spitting image of his champion Dad Holy Bull, was once a ragamuffin living in a wintry Maryland field just waiting for his luck to change.

Charolais led a humble life after his race career ended with a sixth-place finish at Laurel Park in 2004, recalls Kimberly Godwin Clark of Leighton Farm in Maryland.

Somewhat rough around the edges with a patchy coat, Charolais looked to Clark like an animal in need of immediate TLC when their paths crossed sometime in the winter of 2009. She bought him on the spot over a decade ago much to the amazement of her husband who asked, “What are you doing buying horses like that?”

Charolais
Barn name: Charles
Sire: Holy Bull
Dam: Mismatch, by Polish Navy
Foal: May 13, 1999But over the course of eight months, the once unimpressive looking gelding proved to be made of much finer stuff than his initial appearance would suggest, she says.

“He always walked like nothing could beat him down,” Clark says. “And when I got him to my barn, and he got all the food he could eat, warm blankets and care, it was like he seemed to say, ‘Were in fat city now, let’s enjoy it!’ ”

The attitude, and an indefinable “it” quality was what attracted Pimlico outrider Lisa McKlveen; a woman who holds the distinction of being the first female outrider during afternoon races at the track, and the first female outrider to pony a Preakness winner.

The first time McKlveen spotted the gray, she approached Clark, pointed at the Charolais, and declared, “That’s my next pony!”

Charles, a month after he arrived at Clark’s farm, always carried himself with pride no matter how he looked.

“I remember the first time I saw him. I was sitting watching the track and I see Kim had this gray with really long hair and I could see his ribs. He just caught my eye as they walked around the track. After I told her he was my next track pony, I kept an eye on him. I think she thought she’d bring him back to be a racehorse, but then one day she asked if I still wanted her gray horse, and my heart dropped,” McKlveen says. “I told her yeah, yeah, I want him. I said I’d be over in 10 minutes, and that’s how I got Charles.”

But their success on Pimlico didn’t happen over night.

At first Charles was leery of his new owner. He didn’t trust her. He didn’t want her in his stall. And he wouldn’t do anything she asked. “One day he even pushed me against the wall, trying to squish me,” she recalls. But she believed in her new horse, and never gave in to his shenanigans.

Charles and Lisa catch a runaway racehorse at Pimlico.

Then one day while out on an impromptu foxhunt, the trust he’d been withholding was offered up.

“We were about halfway through our ride and taking a break with the other horses when he did a complete 180. He turned and looked at me in the saddle and that was the moment he said, ‘OK lady, maybe you’re not so bad. From that day forward, the love just grew.”

Throughout the years ponying together at Pimlico, Charles has surefootedly carried her after riderless, runaway racehorses. And together they have built their track record to the point of being selected to pony the Preakness winner this year.

“Last year was the first time I’d ponied the Preakness winner. I took a different horse, and ponied Triple Crown winner Pharoah. This year was Charles’s first time. He’s now my most senior outriding pony and when the time came, he did everything with his usual perfectness,” she says. “He does goof off from time to time. But when he has a horse with him, he’s amazing. These pony horses give their life for you. As a rider, you try to keep them out of trouble, and they trust you for it. And you trust them to get you out of something bad when it happens.

“There’ve been many times I should have wound up on the ground, but he saved me.”

Walking alongside Exaggerator after the Preakness, Charles pricked his ears, tucked his head, and looked like a schoolmaster.

“His story of where he is now, and where he was, is incredible,” McKlveen says. “Some gait people remember him as a racehorse, and he was not a nice horse. But Today, he’s a very regal horse, and that’s why his name is Charles, never Charlie.”

She was so thrilled with the way he handled his Preakness duties that McKlveen emailed Clark the photo of the little ragamuffin, resplendent now, back among his kind.

Says Clark, “It’s an amazing story for him to go from where he was to ponying Exaggerator. Charles has such a cool look on his face in that photo. He ponied him to the post and picked him up after. No matter what this horse does, to this day, he enjoys every day. There’s probably a lesson in that for all of us.”