Putnamville Correctional Facility

Across the lush, rolling, green hills of Putnam County, Indiana, gallop a herd of beautiful, thoroughbred, race horses. In June 2007, the Putnamville Correctional Facility received its’ first six horses from Kentucky marking the beginning of the first Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation Program in the State of Indiana.

The partnership between TRF and the Putnamville Correctional Facility, afford race horses that are no longer competitive or retired from racing, a new career, rehabilitation, and retraining that has subsequently lead to private adoption, and, provides an Equine Management Program for twenty offenders. In exchange for the use of land, labor and certain materials at the site, the Facility designed, staffed, and maintains the Equine Management Program that provides classroom instruction on Farrier Science, nutrition, equine law and business, and, allows the offenders the opportunity to hone newly acquired skills.

 "Tin Man Acomin," the grandson of Triple Crown winner, "Secretariat", and "Queen Maggie", of royal lineage, are two of the most notable horses stabled at the facility. "Eye Oh Silver," a silver- grey roan, is the program’s first Indiana horse. At full capacity, the program will accommodate fifty horses from various states.

Horses aren’t the only animals trotting the pastures of Putnamville! The TRF program is also the home of "Ozzie" the llama. Affectionately named after Superintendent "Michael "Ozzie" Osburn, "Ozzie" (the llama, not the superintendent) was donated to the facility to protect the horses from coyotes.

The picturesque stables that the horses now call home, was once an old dilapidated barn. Fallen trees, on facility grounds, were cut and processed at the facility’s lumber mill, and used to build the stables. The renovation of the barn was the cumulative effort of offenders assigned to the facility’s Lumber Mill, Building Trades, and Farm Line work programs.

Under the auspice of Governor Mitch Daniels, Commissioner J.D. Donahue, and Superintendent Michael J. Osburn, correctional staff is charged with developing innovative programming to prepare offenders for a successful re-entry to our communities. The TRF Program provides an opportunity for offenders to learn marketable job skills, provides a venue for them to learn responsibility and to take pride in caring for something other than them selves. It is the intent that these attributes will carry over into their family relationships and enable them to become better fathers and productive members of society.