Off Track Thoroughbreds

Laurie Tuozzolo and her OTTB Three Angels will participate in a Thoroughbred demonstration at Equine Affaire in Springfield, Mass. Nov. 13.

A lumpy legged mare saved from the butcher by a crying child, and a pretty ex-racehorse who survived both the slaughter pipeline and a near-fatal illness in the same year, will be among the off-track Thoroughbreds remade into show horses, and on display next month at Equine Affaire in Springfield, Mass.

On November 13, nine beautiful horses, some with rags-to-riches stories like those of Rubicon, a dark bay mare rescued at auction by young rider Emma Myruski, and Three Angels, a former racemare saved from the slaughter pipeline and nursed back to health by Laurie Tuozzoulo, will help demonstrate the enduring heart and competitive prowess of the Thoroughbred sport horse.

These mares will join seven other OTTBs of various backgrounds and disciplines to strut their stuff at the Equine Affaire Coliseum in an event made possible by the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF). The event, says co-organizer and OTTB owner Christina Sawelsky has been a year in the making, and wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the TRF.

“We wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for the TRF,” Sawelsky says. “I have a long history with the TRF — I’ve adopted five horses from them over the years—and for them to sponsor us in the Breed Showcase enables us to get these horses into the spotlight, and to demonstrate that it doesn’t matter where these animals came from, that they are truly great horses.”

Rubicorn was rescued from a kill pen by Emma Myruski. The pair will demonstrate their skills at Equine Affaire next month.

The background story of each horse will be read by an emcee as horse/rider teams enter the Coliseum to demonstrate their skills under saddle. And for some, the stories of overcoming obstacles and setbacks make their appearance that much more powerful, she says.

Rubicon stood on lumpy legs with her slightly misshapen body unnaturally close to the other horses when she was discovered by New York equestrian Emma Myruski. The 11-year-old girl had accompanied her mother Kay O’Hanlon Myruski to an auction house near their Goshen, N.Y. home two years ago, and soon befriended the forlorn animal. After whispering to the mare a promise to get her out, the young girl’s tears helped convince the meat buyer to turn the animal. (Please see their story here: Girl gets broodmare out of kill pen; ‘I promised’).The background story of each horse will be read by an emcee as horse/rider teams enter the Coliseum to demonstrate their skills under saddle. And for some, the stories of overcoming obstacles and setbacks make their appearance that much more powerful, she says.

And Three Angels was also pulled back from the slaughter pipeline just in time. Rhode Island equestrian Laurie Tuozzoulo, who groomed the racemare at Suffolk Downs, rescued her in 2011 after learning the animal had wound up in the hands of a kill buyer. “It took her two days to find her,” Sawelsky says. “And after she got her home to Rhode Island, the mare nearly died of strangles. Laurie slept in front of that horse’s stall for two days” nursing her back to health.

Monica Southwick is one of the hardworking organizers of this year’s OTTB component of Equine Affaire.

Today, Rubicon competes in pony club nations in the Jumpers and Three Angels is a pleasure/trail horse.

In addition, even other OTTBs and riders will participate in the demonstration. They are: Still Guilty ridden by Jamilee Bravard; Cody Monster ridden by Micki Quinn; Winning Won ridden by Alexandra Bowden; Valid Mission ridden by Cassie Holm, Charlie Business ridden by Elisabeth Sawelsky, Quantity ridden by Christina Sawelsky and Regal Staff Two ridden by Heather Perry.Today, Rubicon competes in pony club nations in the Jumpers and Three Angels is a pleasure/trail horse.

Also participating in the breed demonstration, two TRF horses, Charlie Business and Quantity, will take turns as models on display in a stall at the Breed Pavilion.

Sawelsky, and three other organizers, have worked throughout the year to help make the celebration and awareness of the OTTB a crowning moment at Equine Affaire. Sawelsky organized the events with Cassie Holm, Monica Southwick and Elisabeth Sawelsky.

“Everyone has worked so hard on this. We had a trail ride fundraiser in August that raised enough money to pay for our stall in the Breed Pavilion, and provide a $1,000 donation to the TRF. And a huge thank you goes to OTTB Designs, who donated all the saddle pads for our demo riders. And the TRF, in sponsoring this, has made it all possible,” Sawelsky says. “Getting the word out about OTTBs to all riders is a passion for all of us. We want to see these horses promoted in a second career, so everyone can see how versatile they are.” — This story is repeated today to remind everyone interested in seeing OTTBs at Equine Affaire to please come out to the Big E in West Springfield, Mass., Nov. 10-13. The OTTBs perform on the 13. For more information about Equine Affaire, please visit this website: http://equineaffaire.com/events/massachusetts/

Saratogaatseventy was rescued earlier this year from Puerto Rico by New Yorker Jane LaSure. Photo by Jerry Hook

All roads led back to Saratoga Springs for a New York racehorse whose name and history were so intertwined with the leafy epicenter of summertime racing where her racing career began.

After running her heart out in the low claimers far and wide, Saratogaatseventy found her way back to Upstate New York last month after two of her fans moved heaven and earth to rescue her.

Jane LaSure of Cazenovia, N.Y. and Marlene Murray of the Thoroughbred charity R.A.C.E. Fund, tag-teamed in a joint effort this past summer to fundraise and ship the race mare home after the beautiful, gentle animal completed her 71^st race on the Camarero Racetrack, in Puerto Rico.

Saratogaatseventy
Sire: Cuvee
Dam: Last Day of Winter, by Green Alligator
Foal date: April 13, 2008
Earnings: 71 starts, $38,718“The irony,” says LaSure, “is that she’s a New York bred who I met in Saratoga, who has this great name, and who is now retired with me living within two hours of the city.”

Though in hindsight the full-circle journey that returned Saratogaatseventy to New York seems simple, it was years in the making, says LaSure.

She explains that she and her husband Peter first met Saratogaatseventy at the Saratoga Race Course in 2010. They weren’t in the market for a horse at the time, but couldn’t help noticing the “cute little mare” while they visited a friend.

“Our friend Tim Snyder, who has since passed away, had invited us to come out to see his horse Lisa’s Boobytrap. He’d started having some good fortune with the horse and ended up in a stake’s race in Saratoga and asked us to come watch,” she says. “But while everyone else was fawning over Lisa’s Boobytrap, my husband Peter and I were looking at Sara” who’d been pointed out to them and described as a “nice little filly.”

Sara as she appeared in Puerto Rico before she was flown back to the state of her birth.

The couple soon became so smitten with the mare that they took a few road trips to watch her compete, eventually placing her name in a virtual stable so they would be apprised of the animal’s whereabouts.

As Saratogaatseventy was shipped around the country, traveling to Finger Lakes, Golden Gate, Thistledown and beyond, the couple kept their eyes on her: “I was following her for a very long time. I couldn’t believe the number of times she raced, and the miles she put in, and the fact that she kept placing and showing, or not doing well at all,” LaSure says. “Then one day she disappeared from the radar the way claimers sometimes do, and then all of a sudden she reappeared in Puerto Rico. And I remember telling my husband that they don’t come back from there.”

Aware that Puerto Rico lacks resources for Thoroughbred aftercare, and worried that the cute little mare they’d once admired would wind up running until she was used up and without options, LaSure wrote a letter to Marlene Murray at R.A.C.E. Fund. She began with the simple statement: “A virtual stable is not for the fainthearted.”

By coincidence, Murray had been following Saratogaatseventy too!

Sara is greeted during a homecoming party back on New York soil.

“I was following Tim Snyder’s races and when I saw that Sara ended up in Puerto Rico I figured there’d probably come a point where we may try to help retire her,” Murray says. Murray and LaSure waited for their chance, and in June, they made their bid.

“This past spring I could see Sara was starting to trail off with the racing, and I called Jane and asked if we could raise the funds to bring her back. Could she and her husband give her a home?” Murray says. It was a call LaSure was thrilled to receive.

“We hadn’t spoken for a year when she called to tell me that she had a board meeting at the charity and planned to ask about doing a rescue, but that she couldn’t do the rescue unless Sara had a place to go. While we were talking my husband was listening and he kept nodding his head yes!”

Thrilled to offer a safe haven for a horse who had no other post-racing options, LaSure says Sara is blooming in her home state, standing as a beautiful testament to good luck and coincidences and reunions that were meant to be.

“Some people have been amazed that she came back from Puerto Rico, because most horses don’t come back,” she says. “I hope the word gets out that low claimers are just as important as the big-name horses. And that the plane to Puerto Rico goes both ways.”