Wyoming Thoroughbreds

  The snow continues to blow and drift today, so we get to meet another one of our horses. This time, we'll introduce Warby, one of our other stallions. Warby, registered as War Bond, is a Thoroughbred stallion. He is reasonably tall at 16.2 but not the heaviest built. He has good bone, but he isn't stout like Kevin with his sprinter build. Warby won a bit over $250,000, albeit mostly the hard way with allowance races and claimers. He retired due to a strained suspensory. His connections rehabbed him and decided to retire instead of return him to racing. They contacted us in the hopes that he could both breed and ride. Warby started as a colt with high expectations. He went through Keeneland at $1.95 million, but he did not sell at this price. Gainesway apparently considered him more valuable than almost $2 million. Warby is a son of War Front, an international leading super sire on all surfaces. War Front is the #1 sire in North America by percentage of Grade 1 winners, grade

  Another snow day with frigid temperatures. That seems to be the theme of this winter. With that being said, it's a good day to look at the day to day in Chugwater, which varies from minimal effort to rescue efforts that absorb most of the day. The benefit of the big pasture and the big herd in Chugwater is that it is largely self-sufficient. The ranch has three year round waters. One is a natural spring that flows year round. If that develops ice, it means that we're in a particularly bad storm, so it's a nice gauge when the weather turns and we're feeling bad about ourselves in the doom of winter. If the spring is flowing unencumbered, we can't complain too much. On the other hand, if ice develops around the edges (it never freezes over), we get to complain about the weather a little. The other two waters are solar waters that overflow, thus keeping both the cisterns and the tanks relatively ice free. The windier it is, the better they perform. We do, however, ha

  It's not always daisies and roses. Not in horses and not in life. Our first foal technically came February 15 th . It was a highly anticipated foal with World Champion Quarter Horse parents. This baby was also an embryo transfer into one of our Thoroughbred mares, Fanny. What should have been a wonderful morning started with sadness. At 5:45 AM, Fanny delivered a stillborn foal. The foal never moved and never breathed. The birth seemed normal, but instead of a cute baby, we had a small foal born somewhat stiff. The feathers on its feet, which exist to protect the mom from lacerations, remained intact. These usually fall off as the foal fusses around and gets its bearings in the world in preparation to stand. Instead, the feathers remained untouched, unruffled. The placenta followed not too long after the foal. The umbilical cord was wrapped around one of the horns. It had tight twists along its extensive length, indicating that the foal had vascular compromise. The umbilical co

  At 2:15 AM, we welcomed Elliot, a little stud colt, to the barn. He had an easy birth, stood quickly, nursed, and his mother, May, passed the placenta shortly afterwards. It could not get much easier than that, nor could it be more textbook. May stepped up to help him learn to nurse, too, despite being sore and confused, as she is a maiden mare. She's taking to motherhood without a hitch. It's amazing how quickly most of the mares figure it out. May is a pretty mare, put together well, kind, quiet, and bred well (sire is First Down Dash). This should be a nice colt, even if he is a bit wadded up and crooked right now. That's not terribly unusual. We checked Elliot's IGG around 2, which came back with inadequate levels. If that happens, we look at the situation and decide whether to immediately do plasma or test again in a few hours. IGG is typically checked around twelve hours of age. The goal is to make sure that the foal received enough colostrum. A low IGG can be

  Another cold snap, even if this one isn't as cold as the one in December, it's plenty cold with a windchill of about -30 degrees. As we enjoy another tough winter day, it's a good time to reflect on the needs in the Thoroughbred horse industry. The adoptable OTTBs are doing well industry wide. They are finding homes quickly off of the track. The marketing of the RRP Makeover has done a lot to promote OTTBs, as has the massive social media following. We have noticed a decline in horses donated into our organization, as most are selling directly from the track. This is a mixed blessing. It is great for OTTBs as a whole, but it does have a significant impact on the income for our nonprofit. With fewer adoptable horses, we have to rely far more on grants and private donations. The other shift we have seen is that retired broodmares are becoming noticed. Some of these mares have career options as riding horses. The RRP's broodmare division in the Makeover will help promo

  Happy Valentine's Day! It was a day full of phone calls and text messages, which is more or less the standard. A romantic way to spend the day, for sure. It was one of those days that not much happened, which is both nice and a bit boring. One of the 2022 fillies that we foaled out found a home and is leaving this evening. She's good about the trailer, but one never knows when it's dark and blowing 65+ mph. The wind was the main reason that today was slow. It blew hard today, which both means a storm is blowing in and that the necessary chores were the only things accomplished. That and administration, the never-ending task. More importantly, it's a day that is supposed to symbolize love. It seems fitting to introduce one of our stallions. We'll start with the one that loves breeding the most: Sapphire Cat, fondly known as Kevin at home. He is a 2008 Thoroughbred stallion by Bluegrass Cat and out of black type producer, Piedras Negras. He has produced over $800,0

  We had a blessed and welcome break from the aggressive cold and snow today. We greeted the warmth, sunshine and low winds with enthusiasm. The winds admittedly picked up mid-morning, but one can't be too picky these days. If we go by the definition of low wind for this area, it remained a low wind day, gusting somewhere in the 20s or 30s. Or the 10s, it's hard to tell when anything under 30 mph is considered low wind. We took advantage of the weather to evaluate Halley, JC Highly Favored, under saddle. She comes with a story. She found herself at Centennial Livestock Auction in Colorado in July with her paperwork from the track, including Jockey Club papers, in tow. Historically, our nonprofit, Center for Racehorse Retraining, has cautioned against kill pen horses, as their backgrounds are unknown, but we have tried a different strategy this year for no reason other than it felt like the right thing to do. We're here for all Thoroughbreds, even if that means picking the

  The unthinkable happened. It was so out of the blue that it took several attempts at counting the main herd. After counting four times, the truth had to be accepted. The Geriatrics had come back into the main herd. After months of checking on them as they hunkered down in the far corner of the ranch by themselves, refusing hay and any human help, they decided to move back. They acted as though nothing had changed, like they had lived here all winter. We had led them back, walking the length of the ranch on foot, leading them to hay and the promised land by the house, only to watch them stroll back to the far reaches of the ranch. We worried about them during each storm, found them on foot or on bike as soon as the weather broke each time, only to find them napping and enjoying their little solitude. Finally, they came back home. The joy of seeing our beloved old horses came and went quickly. The same day, the same morning actually, that they came back, they disappeared into the hil

  Foaling season begins any day. Mare number one and mare number two are sitting inside with big bellies hanging low and big bags ready for those babies to come into the world. We are prepared with our foaling kit, cameras, and a newly laid out foaling barn. We don't have a fancy set up, but it has proven to be effective over the years. That barn has been there for seventy-five foals. It has seen many different stall arrangements, bedding options, methods of disinfection, and many different mares. Some of the mares this year are old faces while others are maidens or new to us. Our first two mares include a maiden and a recip mare we foaled out two years ago. The maiden is May, a well bred racing Quarter Horse. The recip, Fanny, is a well bred Thoroughbred with a steady, quiet disposition, a heart of gold, and not much in the way of intelligence. She is going to have a Quarter Horse hunter under saddle baby. Her 2021 filly is a thick, well built and personable filly by Trojan Nation

The middle of February marks the official opening of breeding season. That's the date we begin covering mares with the goal of early babies in 2024. The early mares have already been under lights and teasing to the local neighborhood gelding. They're shedding and excited about their males companions. Come February 15th, they get to meet their mates, whether in person for a live cover or via a syringe and a straw. Seeing as the 15th is a mere week away, we started checking the mares. This means that we ultrasound them and take note of where they are at in their heat cycles. Because all of the recipient mares seemed interested in their gelding herd mate in the last week, we expected to see some follicles and folds. One of the mares had a pretty CL in one ovary, meaning that she had recently ovulated. Two more mares had nice big follicles on the screen, but only one had decent folds. For those not into breeding, follicles develop in each ovary, left and right, until one folli

  This latest storm ended up being the worst of them this winter, so far. We ended up with about ten inches of snow but the winds carried the snow and build drifts of epic proportions. The interstates were closed for the better part of three days due to blowing snow, slick surface and massive drifts. One exit bridge had drifting all the way up to the bridge. Wyoming had to pull out the snow blowers and the loaders, in addition to the graders and plows for this one. At one point, we had a wind chill warning (-30 F), a high wind warning (70+ mph gusts), and a winter weather advisory at the same time. Through all of it, the horses kept doing their horsey things. They ate, drank, napped, and played, seemingly unbothered by the weather. During the coldest of the days, they had snow frozen to their hair coats. They carried on as usual. Because that was the last day of the month, I froze while taking update photos, and they followed me around seeking attention as they always do. Feeding mad