Colonial Downs, photo courtesy of me
Later this coming month, there is a wonderful opportunity for both selling and buying off the track thoroughbreds that I thought everyone should know about. It’s not getting a lot of press, but let us be the first at EN to let you know about this incredible occasion.
On October 27th, Fair Hill Training Center is offering a day of tours, seminars, demonstrations, and most of all the first public marketplace of Thoroughbred ex-racehorses available for sale or adoption. Local OTTB organizations, racehorse trainers, and sport horse trainers will present their Thoroughbreds for sale or adoption. Potential buyers will have online and printed catalogues, and be able to spend all afternoon among the horses and owners, carefully selecting their next Rolex mount. The event is also followed by the “Furlongs to Fences Show” the very next day, and some of the horses offered for sale will be competing there.
At the very beginning of the day, you can meet at the Fair Hill Training Center for insider accounts of the best racehorses from history, and watch the current candidates gallop during their daily exercise. After that, the group moves to the exquisite Fair Hill Equine Therapy Center to learn more about the amenities and the treatments available to help prevent and heal injuries. There, you can check out the facilities that Boyd’s horses used following the barn fire.
Following the tour of the Therapy Center, there will be Barn Tours of many of the training barns. If you’ve ever been to the Fair Hill Horse Trials, you should plan on getting “lost” and going across the bridge to drive past all of the training barns next time you’re there. They are incredible, and I want every single one of them. Plus, you get to see the barn where Michael Matz makes Triple Crown Champions! You will learn about the day in the life of a racehorse, a groom, an exercise rider, and a trainer.
The barn tour is accompanied by a trail ride, for which you can bring your own Thoroughbred to explore the Fair Hill Natural Resources area on horseback, along with some exercise riders and trainers. There will also be an educational symposium on evaluating and training OTTB’s for second careers, led by Retired Racehorse Training Project founder, Steuart Pittman. Following that, there will be a reception and seminar on soundness issues common in OTTB’s and therapies used to resolve them.
If you are interested in learning how to participate as a seller, and how to present your OTTB in the mix that day, please refer to Fair Hill TB Marketplace Information.
The event is free to the public, but requires an RSVP, so that the organizers know how many individuals to expect. Don’t miss out!
[Retired Racehorse Day at Fair Hill, Website]
Eric Dierks & Brazilian Wedding, from the Retired Racehorse Challenge
