Amplify Horse Racing Spring Break. (photo courtesy of Amplify)

Aftercare, classifying races, Uncaptured Storm also in spotlight

National HBPA Release

ALTOONA, Ia.— Annise Montplaisir, co-founder and executive director of Amply Horse Racing, and Price Bell, general manager of Mill Ridge Farm and one of the founders of Light Up Racing, talked about the new grassroots initiatives designed to create a new generation of racing fans and potential work force (Amplify Horse Racing) and to promote horse racing in a positive light while countering misinformation (Light Up Racing). 

Light Up Racing, patterned off a similar initiative in Australia, launched shortly before the Kentucky Derby. Already it has responded to more than 3,200 inaccurate social media posts, Bell said. Notably, it quickly launched on social media a video interview with equine surgeon Larry Bramlage about the successful surgery and promising prognosis for Just Steel, who suffered a leg fracture in the Preakness Stakes. The video effectively countered social media posts suggesting that Just Steel was dead or would die shortly, changing the narrative to the care racehorses get and advances in veterinary medicine. 

Bell said that racing “must get away from sticking its head in the sand” while hoping potential controversy would go away, and instead should face such situations head on with accurate and timely information.

“We have the opportunity to grow our sport by sharing the incredible experiences with our horses… Transparency fosters trust and credibility. Alone, we can do very little; together we can do so much,” said Price, a sixth generation horsemen who also was a founder of the Horse Country program that makes many Kentucky horse farms available for public tours. “… It’s the power of the horse that brings us together.”

Light Up Racing’s mission is to get more and more racing people involved in setting the narrative, expanding a circle of information that transcends just those in the industry and finds it way into the mainstream public.

“This is our weapon, our secret sauce, our chance to change the game,” Bell said. “The passion for our industry shown every day by the work by those in this room can influence the ‘movable middle’ as we can shift perception, build trust and ultimately move it in our favor and grow the sport for generations to come.”

Montplaisir, who grew up and became a passionate horse-racing fan in North Dakota, laid out Amplify Horse Racing’s efforts in its short existence to become the American racing industry’s youth arm through an array of programs and experiences. She said the non-profit in 2023, its first year with a full-time staff of two, reached more than 17,000 young people with information about the thoroughbred industry.

Already in 2024, Amplify Horse Racing has had in-person activities in seven states, with expectations of reaching more than 30,000 people by year’s end.

Montplaisir said Amplify wants to work with horse groups to bring youths to the track. She cited a recent summer program held at Hawthorne racetrack in Cicero, Illinois, sponsored by the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association. She said of the five high school students who participated in the program “four came away wanting to be equine veterinarians.”

She said Amplify’s next step is employing regional ambassadors to expand the reach nationally.

Both groups have been funded by industry entities such as the Breeders’ Cup, The Jockey Club, Keeneland, Churchill Downs, Godolphin, Fasig-Tipton and Spendthrift Farm. Light Up Racing is housed under Blue Grass Community Foundation. 

“Whether it’s for education with Amplify or Light Up in our messaging or aftercare, it’s really important we reinvest in our industry and our industry’s future,” Montplaisir said.

Trainer Ron Moquett, speaking from the audience, said it’s imperative for horsemen to get involved, noting that cell phones provide virtually everyone “a megaphone in your pocket.”

“There’s nothing as important as this,” Moquett said. “Each person is their own megaphone… Every one of us owes it to the horses, to the industry the little bit of energy it takes to say something good about what we do for a living.”

Aftercare, classifying races, Uncaptured Storm also in spotlight

The aftercare panel on Wednesday’s program has become a staple of the HBPA conference, taking on increasing importance as the racing industry finds ways to give its retired racehorses second careers from accomplished show horses to riding horses to what was affectionately called a “pasture potato.”

Anna Ford, who with her mother founded New Vocations Racehorse Adoption in 1992, noted that the term aftercare wasn’t used in the industry when they began. She told the audience how in the last 10 years, the awareness “of the need for aftercare has grown greatly. I think it started primarily when social media came on the scene. Even 10-12 years ago, you’d ask trainers, ‘What do you do with your horses then they retire?’ and most of them really didn’t have an answer. Fast forward to 2024 and ask them, they have an answer 99 percent of the time.”

Ford said last year that New Vocations’ nine facilities took in 618 horses from 70 racetracks and adopted them out to new homes in 38 states. She said the average length of stay to be rehabilitated, if necessary, and retrained is 121 days before being adopted out. The average cost of the stay, including veterinary care is $4,500, with the average adoption fee being $1,400. 

Kirsten Green, administrator for the Retired Racehorse Project, explained that organization’s market-based approach to aftercare, culminating the increasingly popular Thoroughbred Makeover event at the Kentucky Horse Park. That’s where horses who had their last race or published work within the prior 18 months are retrained to compete in 10 disciplines for more than $100,000 in prize money. 

Green said more than 4,700 horses have been impacted by having the Thoroughbred Makeover from its 2013 launch at Pimlico through 2023. The result has been increased demand for retired racehorses, helping to take some of the costs of retraining those horses away from aftercare facilities.

Veterinarian Stephanie White, president of Hope After Racing Thoroughbreds (HART), spoke of the importance of Iowa’s only accredited aftercare facility. Since HART’s 2011 launch, 152 horses have gone through the program, with 127 adopted out, she said. The horses all have a connection to Prairie Meadows.

“For our area, I’m quite proud of that number,” White said. “The first five years, we averaged about five horses a year. Since 2018, we’ve average 19.8 horses.”

But like all aftercare facilities, funding remains challenging, along with the need for volunteers, she said. 

The final panel of the day featured a detailed explanation of how races are assigned, or stripped of, graded status. The panel included Andy Schweigardt, senior director of industry relations for the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA); David O’Farrell, general manager of Ocala Stud and TOBA chairman; and longtime racing official Rick Hammerle, a consultant for 1/ST Racing and director of racing operations at Kentucky Downs. Pat Cummings, executive director of Mike Repole’s new National Thoroughbred Alliance, moderated the panel.

As part of a conversation on finding other ways to fill races and get larger fields, the panelists broached the exploration of introducing ratings handicap races into American racing. Stressing that it would not replace claiming races, they said ratings handicaps would add a category where the condition of the race is based on performance ratings, not claiming prices. Yet to be determine is what entity and methodology would assign rating classifications to horses. 

The National HBPA also honored its 2023 National Claiming Horse of the Year in nine-time winner Uncaptured Storm, who won at least once for each of his owners after changing hands five times last year via the claim box.

“This is a tradition that is a backbone of the industry, and certainly a backbone of our organization,” National HBPA CEO Eric Hamelback said, adding that the candidates for the award “are very successful. But it doesn’t mean that success is defined by purse account. It’s not what they’ve earned as much as what they’ve done.”

Majority owner Rick Burnsworth had planned to attend until a work conflict developed. But he sent a message, read by National HBPA President Dr. Doug Daniels, that said in part: “I was thinking about this award the other night, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Wow! This is as blue collar as it gets. Who doesn’t want to win the Kentucky Derby etc.? To achieve this award you have to get up and compete every day of the year. No time for a let down, and Storm never had one.”