When most people think about horses, they probably don’t think—or even know—that tens of thousands of horses are abandoned, surrendered or abused every year in America. The dichotomy between the idyllic vision of beautiful horses peacefully grazing in lush pastures and the horrific reality faced by unwanted horses—starvation, neglect, abandonment along roads, auctioned and sold for meat—is hard to grasp. That reality, though, is an enormous stain on this nation’s equine industry. It is a complicated, persistent problem that grows larger by the day.

Over-breeding, economics, irresponsible owners and lack of information contribute to the problem. Solutions are hard to come by. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Intrepid problem-solvers are breaking the issue into more manageable pieces, and crafting ways to attack the unwanted horse dilemma piece by piece.

Sarah Ralston, VMD, Associate Professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at Rutgers University, is organizing a network of volunteers who are committed to helping novice and new horse owners learn how to take care of their horses.  The Unwanted Horse Coalition (UHC) has informal data indicating that thousands of horses are surrendered annually because their owners don’t really know how to take care of them. Many of those horses, Ralston says, have been adopted by people who were persuaded to rescue them. “The only statistics I’m going on—we don’t have them specific for New Jersey, but we do have national statistics—show that over 30,000 unwanted horses per year are in need of adoption,” Ralston explains.

Horsemen were in Harrisburg to make their point – funding for racing can’t be pulled without dire consequences to the state’s horse industry.

Act 71, the Pennsylvania Race Horse Development and Gaming Act, passed in 2004, was intended to enhance live racing and breeding programs in Pennsylvania.  More lucrative breeding programs and purses created an attractive environment for raising and racing horses.  While purses fell 45 percent nationally, Pennsylvania’s increased 65 percent.

Act 71 made Pennsylvania the place to be.  And as horses flowed into the Commonwealth, the money did too.

Farms like Northview Stallion Station, Ghost Ridge, Fashion Farm, Penn Ridge, and Dana Point Farm moved to Pennsylvania or expanded, spending $22 million in construction dollars.  Farms are now home to $40 million in new bloodstock. The state now stands three of the country’s top stallions.  The median price of Pennsylvania-bred thoroughbred weanlings has doubled.  Yearling medians are up 88 percent. In 2009, over $37 million in breeding incentive funds was distributed, compared to $14 million in 2001. 

Between 2001 and 2009, the number of foals bred in Pennsylvania increased 11 percent, while nationally the number dropped 11 percent.

At the 2011 Pennsylvania Horse Conference in Harrisburg March 14, Mike Newlin, the relatively new general manager of the Meadowlands racetrack outside New York City, was a featured speaker.  He was there, presumably, to talk to the people most involved in racing in Pennsylvania about how to save racing.

While he spoke the screen behind him showed the new Meadowlands promotions he devised – Thirsty Thursday (free beer), Free Friday (free admission, program, and free World Poker, whatever that is – the photo shows men holding playing cards.)  All were designed to catch the attention of young people with no real interest in horseracing, get them to the track and hope that between the beer and the card games, they have a good time.

I have attended many horse conferences, and this approach is pretty much business as usual for horseracing.  Newlin has spent his entire career promoting racing.  He’s the new GM at the Meadowlands to do just that. Still he groans, our customers are old (they’re gonna die), our sport is boring to young people, our activities (betting) are too confusing.  The end is always near.

Great expectations are a tough burden to bear. 

All of the thoroughbred industry is lusting for a superstar. Union Rags seemingly has the full package: a massive 17-hands colt with a powerful long stride, handsome looks, a solid pedigree, a cool and calm temperament, and the heart-warming story of his owner/breeder Phyllis Wyeth.

Returning to Gulfstream Park off a four-length romp in the Fountain of Youth Stakes, Union Rags turned in a disappointing performance in the $1 million Florida Derby on March 31. Bet down to 2-5, all Union Rags needed to do was outrun Reveron from an outside post and stalk Take Charge Indy heading into the first turn.

It didn’t happen.  After being taken back under a snug hold by Julien Leparoux during the early stages, Union Rags was in a mess of trouble. He was pinned on the rail by second-choice El Padrino behind a wall of horses on the backstretch.  Union Rags spun his wheels around the far turn, then wove in and out rallying through horses in the stretch before the colt finally got clear at the eighth pole. By then Take Charge Indy was long gone. The Chadds Ford Stable colt finished a credible third.

It is a long hard road to the top of any sport, but Holly Corcoran of Stroudsburg PA has gotten there in 50 and 100 mile stretches.  Corcoran is actively competing and winning in FEI level endurance rides with an eye toward the WEG in 2014 and more.

Corcoran is a CPA and entrepreneur by profession, yet she is passionate about the sport of endurance riding. Originally from New Jersey, she has always loved trail riding. She grew up with horses, riding since she was six months old when her father first put her on one of the family Morgan horses.

After a fifteen-year hiatus, she returned to riding as an adult, entering the western show ring, and teaching  her children to ride. They were involved in 4H, and Corcoran was a club leader for 10 years while the family took part in showing Arabians. “It kind of started off pretty tame. As I was going along, I was finding I was really looking for something different,” she said.

Daughter Kelly is now 21 and nearing graduation from Penn State and has applied to vet school for the fall. That leaves Corcoran time to pursue her love of endurance riding.

Not for Everyone
Endurance riding is not a sport for every horse and rider combination. It involves a timed race over 50 to 100 miles in one day over a marked course, monitored by veterinarians at intermittent checkpoints. Winning requires the horse and rider team to turn in the best time within the maximum time limits of 12 hours for a 50 and 24 hours for a 100 mile ride, plus the horse must be deemed “fit to continue” at the end of the trek.

Endurance rides are sanctioned by the American Endurance Ride Conference (AERC) and in 1978, the FEI recognized endurance riding as an international sport.

Corcoran has a small Arabian farm in Effort, PA where she trains and conditions horses for competition.  She became involved in endurance in 2003, finding that it combined her love of the horses with competition over trails.  Initially she began riding “limited distance” rides, which are 25-30 mile  rides sanctioned by the AERC.

There are three races in the Delaware Valley Point To Point Association season starting with Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds Point to Point, held March 25 in Unionville, PA. It was followed by the Brandywine Hills Point to Point on April 1, and concluded with the Fair Hill Races April 22.

The 67th running of the Cheshire Point to Point included four timber races as well as two pony races and a flat race, with the feature being the open timber race for the Cheshire Bowl. The history of the race goes back to the first running in 1946.

“It was 1946, after the war, my mother and Plunket Stewart, started these races just because it was fun,” Jock Hannum, race chairman and son of long time MFH Nancy Penn Smith Hannum said. “Mom pretty much ran it all by herself. There wasn’t a lot of sponsorship in the old days.  It was just three races - a ladies race, a heavyweight race and the open race for the Cheshire Bowl. The Cheshire Bowl was a race people pointed to because the big prize in timber racing is to win the Maryland Hunt Cup and the Cheshire Bowl was the kind of course and the kind of fences that would help to get a horse ready.”

The 1995 Little Brown Jug winner Nick’s Fantasy arrived back home to Pin Oak Lane Farm in New Freedom, Pa., at the end of March. This time, things were a lot less crowded in the trailer.

The first time the now 20-year-old gelding arrived at Pin Oak Lane was his birth in the back of a horse trailer on March 24, 1992. His mother, Saraton, was on her way to Pin Oak for his birth and to be bred back to Nick's Fantasy’s sire, Tyler’s Mark, but Nick couldn’t quite wait. When the trailer ramp came down, there he was.

Almost exactly 20 years later, on March 29, 2012, Nick’s Fantasy's arrival was expected this time. The trailer in which he arrived came from the Standardbred Retirement Foundation in New Jersey, where the gelding had lived since November 2011. Jean Rastetter, a trainer based at The Meadows, outside Pittsburgh, had cared for him since 1997, but asked the SRF for help last year.

Faithful Riding Horse
Rastetter took on Nick’s care when he was no longer able to earn his keep, racing in California in 1997. She gave gas money to his trainer at the time, Bernie Wolin, to haul him from California to her home in West Alexandria, Pa., where he was a faithful riding horse for Rastetter and local children for many years.