Career decisions are sometimes hard. Many are left pondering what it is that they want to do when they “grow-up”. Off-Track Thoroughbreds (OTTB) are no different. The breed is as varied in ability, conformation, and personality as a Heinz 57 dog. Massive, powerful, refined, cat-like, elegant, lazy, energetic–all are adjectives to describe thoroughbreds. Some horses just LOVE to run; others prefer do not.   The common variables that all of these horses do share is their heart, work ethic, and need for human interaction. Given love and kindness a TB who may not have left their heart on the track will give all their heart to the human they love.

As a young thoroughbred sitting in a stall on the backstretch of a race track, we often look at a horse and wonder what their future has in store for them. They don’t race forever. What happens next? Will they make a Hunter/Jumper, Eventer, Dressage, Western, or Trail horse? Will they have a home? Someone to tend to their needs, cultivate their abilities, give them love? The lucky ones are given time off of the track, time to let down. Then, they are found new homes, new careers.  And then, there are some are just not that lucky. 

Doolledo, “Bowie”, is a 9 years old, 17.3 hand gelding. He is a massive, powerful animal. Bowie is also a laid-back, gentle horse. He is silly, plays with his bucket, and throws his rubber bowl across the turnout. Bowie loves to hang his head out of his stall and socialize with anyone that is willing to chat with him. He’s a gentle giant, just one of the boys.

Doolledo leaving the track

Winning his first race, Bowie showed promise at the track. However after running 18 additional races, Bowie never graced the winner’s circle again. Bowie came off track into the loving care of Craig and Colette Geibel. Here, Bowie spent his days playing in the paddock with his buddies. Occassionally, Craig would ride him on the trails, but Bowie was rather large for the narrow, steep trails. Unfortunately, Craig was no longer physically able to ride and Bowie just hung with his other equine compadres.

Participating in the holiday festivities at Geibel Farms, Bowie puts his best hoof forward

Thoroughbreds thrive on routine and consistent work. It was clear that Bowie needed a job. Bowie was listed on the Neigh Savers site as available for adoption. Neigh Savers was contacted by the Presidio Park Mounted Police Department. They were looking for a BIG and quiet horse. Bowie, with his giant stature and goofy personality fit the bill. The police departmet scheduled an interview with Bowie. He passed with flying colors save one exception–he had a love of munching on the American flag while mock protesters waved it in his direction. Not bad for an Off-Track Thoroughbred. Spooky, hot, Bowie scoffed at those words used to describe his breed.

Sgt. King welcoming Bowie into the Presidio Park Mounted Police training program

Unfortunately for the Police Program, Bowie decided that their work shifts were entirely too long for him. Much to the dismay of the Sargeant, they had to pass on him after nearly 3 months in training.  It was a difficult decision for Sgt. King for Bowie had every attribute the police were looking for and in previous years they would have invested much more time to get Bowie to accept his longer shifts.  In fact, they had another horse exactly like Bowie that they had the luxury to work with until they molded him into the perfect police horse.  Unfortunately with budget cuts and staff cuts the Mounted Police needed a horse that could be ready for duty within 90 days.

Back to Geibel Farms and the Neigh Savers Program he went. First career as a race horse was not Bowie’s speed, second career as a trail horse, was a little too steep, third career as a police horse, a little too long of a day, well maybe the fourth time’s the charm…enter Mike.

Mike von Disterlo, of Kimberlee Farms has always dreamed of having a police horse and has always had a love of thoroughbreds. In his 20’s, Mike had the opportunity to compete in Southern California Hunter/Jumper shows on an Off-Track Thoroughbred. Mike has not shown in years and has spent time in the saddle with his elderly rescued Quarter Horse. Mike has yearned to have the opporunity to jump again. He wanted a Thoroughbred and he wanted to be a part of an off-track Thoroughbred’s story.

Mike’s dream has come true. Bowie has moved down to Kimberlee Farms, where Neigh Savers’s Southern California Program is based. Bowie is being restarted under saddle and will ultimately be trained for a career in Hunters/Jumpers. Mike aspires to get back in the show ring and is proud to have such a special partner to do it with.

One never really does know what their life’s career will be. It is a funny thing that no matter how much planning, training, and time is spent working towards one’s career of choice, life and circumstance can change everything. Horses are no different. When horse’s no longer have the ability or desire to race, Neigh Savers is there to help transition them into a new career. We are creating new beginnings for retired racing thoroughbreds. No longer are they trying to win their race of the day, but together, we are helping them win the race of their lives.

Need New Hay Barn: Collapsed barn leaves hay exposed to elements

Neigh Savers’ Northern California horses are in desperate need of a new hay barn. Our delapidated hay barn has finally collapsed. Although temporarily covered with tarps, Geibel Farm gets a tremendous amount of rain and the horses’ hay is getting exposed to the elements, thus running the risk of spoilage.

Through the generosity of two contractors, an electrician and a welder, all labor is being donated. Per the city of Clayton, the structured must have significant steel reinforcement to meet coding standards. Unfortunately, as a result of the steel reinforcement, the cost of materials is approximately $3,000.

We are now raising money to assist in the rebuilding project. Any donations are appreciated and fully tax-deductible.

Macho happily munching on carrots from his supporter Allison

As a result of racing injuries, Materazzi “Macho” was suffering from bone chips in his front knees. The bone chips were causing swelling, lameness, and degenerative arthritis. With successful surgery and rehab, horses like Macho can continue their careers, and even continue to race.

Thank you to Dr. Kim Kuhlman for performing the surgery at a significant discount and Dawn Mellen from After the Finish Line for providing emergency medical funding. Macho is now successfully recovering and will never have to run another race; instead, he has won the race of his life. We are grateful to all of his supporters, donors, and previous owners for giving this kind, affectionate and beautiful gelding a chance at a happy and healthy life. Macho’s prognosis is excellent and he will go on to have a productive second career. 

Jockey Mike Smith riding Warning Zone to victory in Gr. 2 Sunset Handicap

Neigh Savers Southern California Program is pleased to announce the arrival of Warning Zone aka “Ozzie”. Ozzie arrived at the end of April and is enjoying life at Kimberlee Farms. He stepped off the trailer a perfect gentleman.

Thank you to top trainer, Kristin Mulhall for placing this special thoroughbred in our care. He was retired from the track, a champion with winning 2 Graded Stakes races under the guidance of Jockeys Mike Smith and Cory Nakatani and, as well as having over $350k in career earnings. He will now enjoy lots of love, carrots, and most likely retrain for a career as a hunter.

Warning Zone Arriving at Kimberlee Farms

Kimberlee Farms owner, Kim von Disterlo, has fallen in love and has adopted. She aspires to showing him in Hunter Hack and Rusty Stirrup classes. As a horse who has given so much of himself, he will enjoy a quiet life and a special woman to love him forever.

Warning Zone, we are pleased to welcome you home!

Colette, of Geibel Farm, with long-time supporters Doug and Susan

The Neigh Savers’ first Northern CA open house was a hit! Saturday, May 22^nd was an exciting day for our Northern California team as Craig & Colette Geibel of Geibel Farm and NS founder Karin Wagner welcomed all who came to visit our first annual open house. We offered pony rides, homemade goodies, new volunteer opportunities and a chance to meet our retired off-track Thoroughbreds and are grateful to our volunteers and supporters for helping to make the day a success!

New Volunteer Cheri with Yah Never Know

A special thank you to Craig & Collete for all of their hard work and for donating farm fresh eggs and brownies, to Cyndi and Jessica for giving pony rides to the kids, to Trish for donating fantastic homemade jams, to Victoria for donating stall guards, to Carolina and Family who volunteered all day long and provided cookies for our bake sale, to Andrea for homemade brownies, and Michele for exotic Turkish goods. Also thanks to Shelby & Cheri who signed up new volunteers, and to Allison for offering to help sponsor Macho. Big thanks to the Clayton Pioneer, whose article helped bring publicity and support to our event.

Ashna enjoys her first pony ride with proud papa Swapan

All proceeds from the pony rides and homemade goodies sale directly benefit the care of the horses.

Fritz's bright and happy smile

Neigh Savers’ Northern California program is proud to bring Fritz Grau into its program. Fritz is a six year old, 16.3 h/h chestnut gelding. Fritz was a fierce competitor on the track and known around the barn for his gentle, kind, and even personality. He has always loved the attention of people and munching on his carrot treats. Fritz is currently in rehabilitation for a slight shin fracture and should be able to return to work around August 2010.

Fritz has a special story. His dam, College Band, was found on a feedlot in foal and gave birth to a stillborn foal. After being rescued by a well-known California horse breeder, College Band became a favorite dam and produced some very fine racers over the years.

Geri named Fritz after an old friend who always talked race horses and loved the track and all things racing. However, Mr. Fritz Grau could never be convinced to participate as a race horse owner. Several years ago, Mr. Grau was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Although he had never owned a horse, his dear friend, Geri, named this kind, young colt after him. In his final days, Mr. Grau found much joy in visiting his namesake at the barn.

As fate would have it, Mr. Grau’s widow, Susan, is helping to sponsor Fritz in her beloved husband’s memory. Mrs. Grau writes: “Fritz is a gorgeous, friendly horse as you are probably aware, and named after my wonderful, gorgeous, friendly, unfortunately deceased husband. Thank you so much for his care and being there.”

Fritz and Cat's Matching Sock

Fritz has excellent conformation, a short back, and clean legs. With his personality, heart, and physical build, he will make a fine riding partner and best friend to a very special person. We look forward to seeing Fritz find his new career, but in the meantime he and Ymustichasethecat are the best of friends, spending their days paling around the paddock and joined at the hip.  The two chestnuts look like twins.  They even each have one white sock on rear right legs!

Fritz will be available more adoption in the fall. We are currently accepting applications for him. Interested? Email: karin@neighsavers.com

Seth urgently needs cataract surgery

Scythian Gold (Seth) is a yearling by Mongol Warrior out of the dam Now My Precious. Seth is very “Precious” to us already and has come to Neigh Savers by quite a route. His dam was part of a controversial southern California breeding dispersal.  Now My Precious was pregnant with Seth when she eventually landed in a feed lot in Arizona. The dam was rescued and subsequently foaled Seth at another rescue.

We have now taken over Seth’s rehabiliation, care, and training as the other rescue is not in a position to train young horses and also does not have the necessary funding to pay for Seth’s cataract surgery. We are not exactly in a good position to do this either but are committed to raising the funds for this very urgently needed surgery. We know we have some awesome and dedicated supporters. We can only help Seth with your help, generosity, and compassion.

Not only did we adopt Seth, but at the same time also a filly, Valerie’s Gift (Gigi), another yearling by Dante’s Inferno out of the dam Baby Bountiful. Baby Bountiful was found on the same feed lot and traced back to the same breeding dispersal that dumped Now My Precious there. Thus, both babies came to us indirectly from a breeding dispersal via a feed lot. They are two of the fortunate ones. Especially fortunate because both yearlings are now living and will be trained at Kimberlee Farms in Somis, CA.

Please help us raise the funds to provide Seth with his much needed cataract surgery.

Mike von Disterlo, Owner, Kimberlee Farms and Karin Wagner, Founder, Neigh Saver, proudly displaying grant check from CARMA

Neigh Savers was honored along with 11 other rescues last month by the California Retirement Management Account Foundation (CARMA).  The majority of the funding went to the three major rescues that run dedicated retirement facilities.  However, we were honored to be included for the second consecutive year.  We will quote directly from the news release:

“We are extremely proud of the work we have done over the past 12 months,” said Madeline Auerbach, a program founder who chairs the CARMA Board. “These funds will help buy much needed hay, feed and medications, etc.  Hopefully, this will give a financial cushion to each of the charities. Not only has the CARMA program proven to be successful in terms of dollars raised, we’re able to see a tangible difference at the farms and facilities where the horses live. As we go out and visit organizations throughout the year, our directors are seeing the money put to work.”

Neigh Savers looks forward to continuing rehabilitating, retraining, and rehoming Off-Track Thouroughbreds in 2010. Shown proudly displaying the Neigh Savers’ grant check from CARMA are Mike von Disterlo, Owner, Kimberlee Farms and Karin Wagner, Founder, Neigh Savers.

King Alain, 23, enjoying his retirement at The Golden Carrot

One of our 2010 ventures is to assist elderly TB’s in their final years.  Neigh Savers’ CEO & Founder Karin Wagner has been asked to serve on the Board of The Golden Carrot by Casey O’Connor and has accepted this invitation.  Some years back Neigh Savers began sponsoring Rocky (Freebe’s Lad), who was found starving and was about to be abandoned in the desert to die of thirst.  This poor gelding was at least 500 – 600 pounds underweight.  We have helped out over the years and are stepping up our campaign.   We will feature a horse now and then including Swing’s Lew and Won’t Give an Inch (found on the Neigh Saver’s Rescued Pages).  Today, we will highlight “King Alain”, barn name of “Shine.”  We will simply post what Casey has so beautifully written about him.  King Alain is in need of sponsorship.  Whatever donation you designate for him will go to him at The Golden Carrot through Neigh Savers:

“With the help of Neigh Savers’ Karin Wagner, we have now identified “Shine” as King Alain. You may recall that King was boarding at a facility where Marsi Marsh (former supporter) saw the owner repeatedly feed horses on either side of his stall, leaving King hungry and agitated. She requested, and was given, King to be her own. Unfortunately, Marsi was just a beginner, and King was “too much” for her, or her trainer to handle. So she reached out to The Golden Carrot, and he came to live here several years ago. We found “Shine”, as he was called then, had a sweet baby face and the manners to go with it, but a hip so damaged that he had uneven development of his muscles from one side to the other, and a dragging step. Yes, he is a little ‘hot’ as some OTTBs can be, a little timid and spooky but not at all mean, and with a kind nature. With his disability, and ‘hot’ nature, we expected we’d never be able to use him for any riding – and were glad to see him hook up with Victor and Sunny in the herd. 

Reading his tattoo and looking at his markings which are quite distinctive, Karin determined that “King” is 22 years old, Kentucky Bred, with lifetime earnings of $77,147 in 17 of his 62 starts, 5-4-8. It doesn’t sound like a lot of money for that many races, until you realize he earned from 1989 to 1993 – more than 15 years ago – in today’s dollars, it might be four times that! I will be trying to reach his breeder and trainer to see if they can tell me more about him, and will update you if successful.

The list of jockeys who rode King is impressive – Solis, Valenzuela, Desormeaux, Pincay and others. Not just every colt gets jockeys like those. Knowing him as I do now, I wonder if all along he had the injuries to his hip which resulted in his ending up here. He rallied again and again, but had so many many unsuccessful starts where he “weakened”, had “gradual fade” and “trailed throughout”. He tried so hard ….

I am so glad that he ended up here. And that kind of effort shows every day when he does his best for me anytime I ask. That hip injury may never be something we can fix – efforts at massage and chiropractic have so far only had temporary results. It could be that all those tries caused damage that may never heal. I can only hope that King Alain will find his own sponsor, and live a few more golden years here in payment for his efforts.”

Tresor La Vie being retrained for dresssage.

Tresor was a much loved race horse.  He did fairly well on the track, was retired and retrained in dressage, brought back to the track for a final comeback and then permanently retired.  It is our experience at Neigh Savers that when a horse actually comes to us it is usually with no money whatsoever.  There are many responsible owners that find another home for their retired horses.  We are here for those horses that usually have nowhere else to go.  Rarely, but sometimes an owner will either step up and help pay for or sponsor the horse entirely, as is the case of Ymustichasethecat.   Sometimes, but rarely, a horse will come with a “start-up” donation.  That is why we fundraise.  That is why we rely on the kind hearts of strangers, who sometimes become Neigh Savers’ friends, to help us with those that have no help or recourse. 

Tresor was one of the lucky ones as he was privately maintained by his owners at the Double Bar S Ranch near Riverside, CA.  We were contacted by his owners to help find him a home.  Ultimately through a track contact a home was found and we were told Tresor would be a riding horse in the rural town of Bishop, CA.   

Not long afterwards the prior owner was contacted by the new owner and was asked to surrender the original Jockey Club Registration papers to him.  The prior owner did not contact us for she thought really nothing of sending these papers to the new owner for he claimed he needed them to barrel race Tresor (not true!).   Several months later a recorded workout was posted by Tresor La Vie at a local track.  Not long afterwards Tresor La Vie was entered for a race at a small nondescript track in Ellis, Nevada. 

It turned out that the new owner fraudulently transferred title on the JC papers and was training Tresor all along for a track comeback.   The Nevada horse racing board pulled Tresor from the race.  However, the angered new owner threatened to sell Tresor “down the river” to a Mexican rodeo or worse and would not return him to the prior owners.  The whole situation became really ugly with the new owner ultimately demanding a “ransom” be paid that equaled a daily training rate from the day he took Tresor into his care.  Feeling they had no options, the prior owners paid the ransom and took Tresor back.  The story has a happy ending for Tresor is now peacefully enjoying a real retirement in pasture at a friend’s ranch in beautiful Ventura County.

The moral of the story is to trust no one at face value when it comes to these horses.  We have been blessed at Neigh Savers to be connected with some of the most caring, compassionate, generous and responsible people one could ever hope to encounter and also with some of the worst including meth addicts, thieves, liars, untrustworthy alcoholics, common horse traders posing as rescues and more.