The Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF) will participate in the opening day celebrations at Saratoga Race Course on July 11, 2019 at the NYRA Community Booth.  TRF will be honoring Quick Call, a much-loved TRF retiree and herd ambassador, who was known at Saratoga as the ‘horse for the course’ and who celebrated his 35th birthday this year. The TRF team will welcome supporters and promote awareness of Thoroughbred aftercare throughout the day at the Community Booth on Thursday.  The booth will feature a “Thoroughbred Trivia Challenge”, TRF merchandise, and a chance to meet the Program Manager of the TRF Second Chances Program in Wallkill, NY. The Community Booth is located just beyond the horse path, inside the East Avenue/Union Avenue entrance to the grandstand. It is to the right, behind the Jockeys’ Room/Silks Room.  

To honor Quick Call, the TRF is launching a “1,000 wishes” birthday campaign, with the goal of securing 1,000 gifts of $35 each from horse racing enthusiasts in honor of Quick Call’s 35 years.  The campaign will launch on July 11^th and will finish on closing day of the Saratoga meet, September 2^nd.  To learn more, visit his page here: https://www.trfinc.org/quickcall35/

The Grade III, $100,000 Quick Call Stakes for three-year-olds at five and a half furlongs on the turf will run as the 9^th race on Thursday, one of the featured races on the Opening Day card. Inaugurated in 2008, the Quick Call Stakes was named after the multiple graded stakes winning gelding that scored nine of his 16 career victories at the Spa. Trained by Hall of Famers Sid Watters, Jr. and Warren ”Jimmy” Croll, Quick Call finished fifth in the Saratoga Special in 1986, and went on to win nine races at Saratoga from 1987-1990 including the Forego in 1988 and 1989. His missed a third Forego win by a nose in 1990.

Quick Call retired in 1992, having made 86 starts and earning more than $800,000. Now 35 years old, he is the oldest of the 650 horses cared for by TRF. Quick Call lives at the Wallkill Correctional Facility near New Paltz, NY where he plays a vital part of the TRF’s Second Chances Program, which uses former racehorses to not only teach equine care as a vocation to inmates, but also lessons in trust, responsibility and mutual respect.