Volunteer groups works to place unwanted animals

BUCKEYSTOWN, Md. — Allie Conrad picks up a lead rope and walks the big chestnut down the lane to another field at Long Lane Farm. The horse moves gingerly because of cartilage problems in his ankles.

The horse, Thisbidsforyou, was bred to be a winner, as all racehorses are in the eyes of their breeders. Sired by Winning Bid and with a pedigree that includes Mr. Prospector, Secretariat and Northern Dancer, he certainly had a chance. But bad ankles derailed his racing career.

But Thisbidsforyou got lucky — twice. Unlike thousands of other exhausted, broken-down thoroughbreds, Thisbidsforyou has a future, thanks to his last trainer, a compassionate horseman, and Conrad.

Conrad is executive director of Canter Mid Atlantic, a nonprofit organization that takes in worn-out racehorses, saving them from what could be a horrific end in a killing shed.

"Look at him," Conrad said, as Thisbidsforyou nuzzled her hair. "How could anyone put an air bullet in his head and then have him eaten as food?"

Conrad and a group of 30 volunteers are trying to save run-down and injured racehorses from being pumped up on steroids and painkillers that mask injuries so they can continue to race when they shouldn't, and also from being shipped to auctions, where representatives of companies in Canada and Mexico are known to gather to buy the horses for food-processing plants.

It is at these plants that terrified horses are killed with the bullets to which Conrad referred.

During the past three years, Canter Mid Atlantic has placed more than 45 rehabilitated former racehorses in new homes as show horses, riding horses and pets, and has enabled trainers and owners to sell or give away more than 3,000 unwanted horses to better situations on the nonprofit's Web site, canterusa.org/midatlantic. Conrad has had to euthanize 15 others because their injuries were too severe for recovery.

Here in Frederick County, at a 250-acre family-owned horse boarding farm, is one site where Conrad rents space for Canter's recovering thoroughbreds. She is able to keep 11 horses at Long Lane Farm. She boards four others in Poolesville, two in Damascus, three in Delaware, and two each in West Virginia and Virginia for a total of 24, which is Canter's financial limit.

Thisbidsforyou came to Long Lane Farm a few months ago after experiencing his first piece of good fortune — being claimed by Bowie-based trainer Fred Groves, who came to realize he had claimed a horse that had been run beyond reason.

"I claimed a horse in bad shape, and I didn't know it," Groves, 59, said. "I thought he had a knee bothering him. But he had cartilage degeneration (that was masked by drugs) in both his left and right ankles. About 40 percent gone.

"He'll make someone a good riding horse or a pet. He has such a nice disposition; I wasn't going to butcher him."

Thoroughbreds such as Thisbidsforyou come to Conrad with worried faces — stress lines below their eyes and sunken pockets above. They come to her with wounded legs and ankles and depleted spirits.

They are damaged racehorses at the end of their careers, facing unknown and often desperate futures.

"They come here, and their muscles are very tense and they're body-sore," Conrad said as she led the way into an open field. "I like to do this for them. I just let them run free here in the fields for three months and let them be horses. While they're out here, their brains change. A few weeks in, their muscles will melt and be malleable as they let go of their stress. The little wrinkles under their eyes and the hollows disappear."

Conrad, 34, who works full time for a consulting company in McLean, Va., has run the nonprofit for eight years. This year, she will operate with an annual budget of $60,000, an all-time high, accumulated through donations, fundraisers and grants from Thoroughbred Charities of America and Blue Horse Charities.

A good part of the funding also comes from selling the reconditioned and retrained horses, which bring in an average of $3,000 each. She said 100 percent of the money goes back into the program.

The organization continually tries to persuade trainers and owners to sell their worn-out horses to Canter for $300 to $600, the price most would bring at auction. The organization pays the horses' veterinary bills, boarding and retraining costs.

Canter Mid Atlantic is one of several groups rescuing racehorses. Another is ReRun, which got a boost when part of Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown's Haskell Stakes winnings were donated. Canter USA has seven programs, with branches in Maryland, Ohio, Illinois, New England, Texas, Pennsylvania and California. A program is being started in Florida, and Conrad is about to start another at Delaware Park.

In June, Conrad gave emotional testimony at a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee hearing on horse racing.

"Horses race on fractures and they race to exhaustion, but they always run as fast as their bodies will allow," she said. "Injected with steroids and painkillers, their only option is to run the great race, until they can't run any longer. One thing has been made very clear to me. Racehorses are not protected from horrific ends by their pedigree, their high sales price at the high-end auctions or by the money they win for owners."

She said sons of Belmont Stakes winners AP Indy and Tabasco Cat have benefited from Canter's service. And Canter has found homes for Triple Crown-nominated 3-year-olds, including Bobby V, who won nearly $1 million as a thoroughbred and is now living what Conrad calls "the good life" as a hunting horse.

Conrad has been watching state racing commissions that have imposed and are imposing bans on steroids. But, she said last week: "Anabolic steroids are not what's causing horses to break down.

"Racing needs to look at joint injections and race-day anti-inflammatory injections more closely and use corticosteroids in the manner in which they are intended — therapeutically," she said. "Meaning, use on injuries with mandatory rest afterward. In my opinion, nobody should be able to inject a joint and run a horse the next day — or that day. There should be zero tolerance for people who cannot use medications in the manner for which they are intended — to heal, not to hide injuries."

Thisbidsforyou and his 10 fellows at Long Lane Farm walk and frolic over the rolling hills. Conrad said that on a sizzling afternoon in late summer, they showed just how childlike they can be.

"A creek runs through those trees," she said, pointing to the area, then showing cell-phone video she shot that afternoon. "They were standing there, nose to tail. I watched for a while. One would go into the grove and after a little while emerge from the other side of the trees. I walked around to see what they were doing and found they were enjoying their own water slide."

The footage showed the horses, one by one entering the trees and sliding down a muddy hill into the water, rolling and splashing. When one horse leaves the water, the next one slides down.

"I felt like I had happened upon the thoroughbred version of the mystical elephant dance," she said.

Conrad said she sees a lot of sad, painful situations doing Canter's work, but the moment she sees these horses in the field, she has a clear vision of why she continues.

"Helping these horses just makes me so happy," she said.

Distributed by the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service