Welcome

The Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF) is the largest equine rescue organization of its kind, devoted to the rescue, retirement, rehabilitation and retraining of thoroughbred racehorses no longer able to compete on the track. We currently care for 1200 retired racehorses daily with more than 650 additional horses in adoptive homes. At re-training farms around the country, we prepare racehorses for adoption as riding horses. At our correctional facility farms, we provide a vocational training program for inmates as they provide supervised care to our retired horses.

The Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation is a place that offers a humane alternative to the dire possibilities that have long faced a great majority of ex-racers - neglect, abuse and slaughter. It is a place, built on love and caring, that is befitting such noble and deserving animals.

Join Us for a Black Tie Dinner Dance and Silent Auction at Exquisite Peace and Plenty Farm

Rose Marie Bogley is hosting a black tie fundraiser on October 9, 2010 at Peace and Plenty Farm at Bollingbrook in Upperville, VA. Tickets are $250 each and a limited quantity are still available. If you would like to attend this unique event, please call us at 518-226-0028.

NEW SECRETARIAT BOOK MAKES DEBUT AT SARATOGA RACECOURSE

Kate Chenery Tweedy will be at Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation table on Aug 18, from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM

Saratoga Springs, NY (August 9, 2010) – The first and only book ever written by a member of the Chenery family who owned Secretariat and his Virginia birthplace, The Meadow, will make its debut at Saratoga next week.

Secretariat’s Meadow – The Land, The Family, The Legend is by Kate Chenery Tweedy, daughter of Penny Chenery (Tweedy) and granddaughter of Christopher T. Chenery, who founded the Thoroughbred farm in 1936. Kate Tweedy will be discussing and signing a limited number of advance copies of the book at the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF) table set up at Saratoga Racecourse on August 18, “Thoroughbred Retirement Awareness Day” from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Five dollars from each book sold at the track will go to the TRF. She will also be taking orders so that books may be shipped. More Information...

TRF's First Annual Run for the Horses! 5K Run/walk race. September 4, 2010 Start time: 8:30 AM, Saratoga State Park. Read more...

TRF Receives Prestigious Fitch's Corner Award

CARRIE DEWITT GILBERT WINS PHOTO CONTEST

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Carrie DeWitt Gilbert usually spends up to an hour watching and taking pictures of new foals shortly after their arrival at the Lexington, Ky., farm she works as a stallion manager.

“Because they’re so young a lot of times they’re quiet or napping,” she said. “But every now and again you get a foal that is really frisky, bucking and kicking.”

One such foal was a daughter of Smart Strike, who Gilbert took a picture when the filly was just days old. That photograph was judged by award-winning photographer Jon Kral as the winner out of nearly 200 entries in the TRF’s first Facebook Photo Contest.

The photo, named ‘Pretty Filly,’ struck Kral for its exuberance and joy.

“What I was looking for in these photographs was composition, lighting…the story it was telling me,” said Kral, a five-time Pulitzer Prize nominee and author of Saving Leslie Jones, Hotbloods and Cracker. “To see this filly jumping in the air with joy was like the beginning of a thoroughbred’s life. It was really a wonderful, hopeful story.”

Gilbert, who grew up in upstate New York and currently works for Flaxman Holdings, says she loves being surrounded by thoroughbreds and has developed a passion for photography.

Kral also recognized photographers Kelly Collins, Kirsten VanderBurg and Monika Willet.

“I thought all the photographs were very good and they all showed me a special relationship between the horse and photographer,” Kral said. “There’s a very special bond between thoroughbreds and those who appreciate and work with them.”

Stay tuned to the TRF’s Facebook page for all the news and events, including an upcoming wine tasting and 5k ‘Run for the Horses,’ in Saratoga Springs.

The Fitch' Corner Award, presented annually at the Fitch's Corner Horse Trials, recognizes an individual or organization which has provided leadership, support and enhanced the equestrian experience in the greater Millbrook Community.

For the past 28 years, the TRF has provided for safe homes and new vocations for thousands of retired thoroughbreds, many of whom have excelled in show jumping, eventing, hunting and dressage.

Center Brook Horses Start School

July 16, 2010. On the weekend of July 4, a van carrying three fillies pulled into the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation’s (TRF)) farm on the estate of James and Dolly Madison in Montpelier Station, Virginia.

For the three new residents of Montpelier Station, it was another stop in an improbable journey.

The fillies, welcomed by TRF farm manager Kim Wilkins, were three of the 177 malnourished and diseased thoroughbreds rescued in April of 2009 on the Center Brook, N.Y., farm owned by Ernie Paragallo. Read more...

CEO of the National TRF visits Seabiscuit Stables

July 15, 2010. Larry Taylor, CEO of the national Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, and his wife, Denise,visited the farm located at Wateree River Correctional Institute in outside Camden, SC on July
15, 2010. The visit to SC was one of the first on his introductory tour of the national and local facilities across America.
"We were very proud to have him in Camden and Larry expressed how impressed he was with the quality of the facility, the horses and the men in the program." said William Cox, President of TRF's South Carolina chapter.

Diana Pikulski named as one of industry's Women of Influence

July 3, 2010. The inaugural list, which was determined by a vote of the Thoroughbred Times editors and writers following widespread polling of thoroughbred industry participants, includes many of the industries top ambassadors, including Penny Chenery, owner of the legendary Secretariat and president of the Secretariat Foundation, owner Gretchen Jackson of Lael Stables, owner Maggi Moss, and Helen Alexander of MiddleBrook Farm.

Pikulski, a native of New Jersey, met TRF founder Monique Koehler while still in high school and working at a local riding stable. Pikulski has worked with the TRF for 15 years, first as a volunteer, and now as executive director for external affairs.

TRF Announces Restructuring

July 1, 2010. The board of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, the oldest and largest non-profit association devoted to the aftercare of racehorses, has announced a restructuring of its internal operations. The new structure comes in response to the growth of the organization and the increasing demand from the racing industry and fans for humane treatment of ex-racehorses.

Two new positions have been created, and the organization will now maintain offices in Saratoga, N.Y. and Lexington, KY. More...

Second Chances Farm honors first graduate

By Cindy Monkouski, Correspondent Advocate of Eldersburg and Sykesville

Second Chances Farm in Sykesville marked the first anniversary of living up to its name on May 14. It is currently the home of four thoroughbreds rescued from an uncertain fate that are now part of a unique job-training program for inmates, one of whom is the first in Maryland to complete the program.

Conni Swenson, Program Coordinator of the Elite Groomsman program at Second Chances said that at first she had doubts about Edward Rybolt.

I looked at this guy and said, ‘He’s not going to make it,’ but he’s stuck with it and proved me wrong,” she said.

Click here to read the whole story.

RIDING FOR THEIR LIVES

WHY WE'RE DOING THIS, AND HOW YOU CAN HELP

"The way I see it, Thoroughbred race horses have contributed to the very meaning of life, so they too deserve to retire with dignity and not be sent to the slaughterhouse just because they now do six furlongs in 1:16 instead of 1:12.

We invite you to follow our journey, and if you'd like to sponsor us, just click on the link. https://www.firstgiving.com/trf

The Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation currently cares for over 1200 unwanted horses. When you sponsor us, we are helping them in their mission to save ALL unwanted racehorses."

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