Foaling time is over, now the real work begins

Everyone looks forward to the new foals each year and thanks to technology it is easier to ever to watch mares as they get close to foaling time. After years of getting up every hour or sleeping on cots in barns just to miss the wonderful event as you try to catch a nap or run a quick errand, we now have foaling down to a science.

Three years ago we invested in foal cams and a foaling alert system. Now we sleep through the night and don't feel as if we are chained to the barn. We can carry on as usual until the phone rings to alert us of mare laying down and then we log on to the computer to watch the mare in case assistance is required. Isn't technology great?

This year we had a small crop, only 4 foals. All but one were incredibly healthy. The other needed a little help. His mother had dripped milk for over two weeks and didn't provide her foal with adequate colostrum. The foal responded fine and would get up and visit with us each time we went into the stall but as we monitored his behavior from the computer we noticed he was not as active as a normal foal and spent a lot of time laying down. We called the vet early the next morning and as expected he was in need of plasma. Almost immediately the colt recovered and is now doing wonderful. Without the monitoring system we may not have noticed the lethargic behavior as quickly and been able to take the action needed in as timely of manner.

I recommend anyone with mares and foals get a foal cam and a foaling alert system. If you save one foal you will repay yourself hundreds of times over. Anyone interested in the system can contact us or go to our website and see our cameras at the farm. We also have a camera system at the racetrack where owners can log in to see their horses anytime during the day.

Incidentally one of my little boogers kicked the snot out of me a couple of days after he was born. Got to love them though... Now all four are halter broke, picking up there feet and on their way to a good start as being racehorses.

Elliecat wins the Chou Croute Handicap, Lemony Cricket wins too!

What a great day it was when mean old Elliecat won the Chou Croute Handicap Saturday at the Fair Grounds. We have had Elliecat in our barn since April of 2007. Since then she has done very well with 3 wins and 3 seconds from 8 starts. At least she looks good in the form. Her bedside manner is not so good. During our 10 months with this filly she has earned the barn nickname, "EllieGATOR", attempting to savage grooms, hotwalkers, pony people, and yes, even me. She keeps us on our toes for sure. This mare is so wild she jumped on top of a hotwalker and actually scissor locked her front legs around the womans neck while biting her on the head all the way to the ground. Fortunately the hotwalker scrambled away from her into our office. We caught the whole attack on tape. Just recently she jumped on her groom in the shed row, again caught on tape and again without injury to the groom. In November she got me while I was on my pony and now 5 months later I still have top and bottom teeth mark scars on my shin.

Well putting up with all of her meanness paid off Saturday when her mean streak carried her wire to wire in the Chou Croute Handicap. Setting all the fractions and drawing off down the lane to hold on at the wire by a neck, Elliecat paid $159 bucks on a two dollar bet. The second biggest payout of the meet. Lonnie Meche happened to bring in both of them with his front running strategy.

Congratulations to James and Ywachetta Driver ! We love you guys and hope we have many great years together! (and if you can't find a place for that big trophy let me know).

On another good note our filly Lemony Cricket won the 7th race of the day, a $50,000 claiming race for fillies and mares, by 5 lengths, drawing off down the lane. That brought her up to 2 wins, 2 seconds and 3 thirds in 9 starts since Dallas Keen took over her training in May of 2007.

Lemony Cricket was purchased from a sale by the thoroughbred partnership of Ace Thoroughbreds, LLC and now has become the teams leading money earner with close to $80,000 in earnings.

Thoroughbred Partnerships, Join Team Keen

Thoroughbred partnerships can minimize the risk of loss and maximize the potential for earnings. With the financial help of a group we can provide you with a better horse for a smaller investment. This gives people who normally couldn't afford a stakes quality horse the chance to own a piece of one while being a big part of the fun and excitement in the winners circle.

The difference between the way we do things and other thoroughbred partnerships starts with your initial investment and ends with the return of your portion of the purse. There are no hidden costs, no gimmicks, and no wondering where you money is truly being spent. All costs are itemized from vet bills to training fees and are billed directly to you monthly for your exact percentage owned. With Team Keen there are no extra partnership fees and all earnings are paid back to owners as soon as money clears the horseman's account at the track. You pay only what you owe when you owe it, not in advance but as charges occur.

There are several ways to start a partnership all depending on your preference. We attend many yearling and two year old sales during the year as well as locate racing prospects privately. We also claim horses starting at $5000 up to $50,000.

You may already have a group of friends interested in a partnership or you may want to be a part of a group already forming. Either way we will answer all of you questions about thoroughbred ownership and partnerships and be glad to start you in the right direction when you contact us.

Join the fun, come to the track, and be a part of a winning team.



Team Keen

Starting Two Year Old Thoroughbreds

Well, its that time of year again. Two year olds will be racing as early as April and we have started breaking babies at the farm. This year we have a new addition to our staff at Keen Farms. Chris and Carrie Loelhein have joined our team and will be working with the young horses as they prepare for their future at the race track.
Chris and Carrie have relocated here from Florida and have been in the horse boarding, breeding and training business for many years. They will a valuable addition to Team Keen and we are looking forward to a very successful year with them.
In addition to overseeing the farm, Carrie will be in charge of our Thoroughbred Relocation Program where we rehabilitate and retrain thoroughbred horses after their racing careers are over. We sell the sound, retrained riding horses and broodmares and the profit from their sales help to pay the expenses on horses with major problems that take an extended period of time to heal before they may be relocated or adopted. We except horses from all over the country and will provide rehabilitation and placement for free, we just ask that you get them here to our farm in Burleson, Texas as we do not have the resources to go pick them up.
Dallas and Donna Keen are currently excepting two year olds for breaking and training at their farm and will be moving the entire racing stable from The Fair Grounds Race Course and Sam Houston Race Park to Lone Star Park in late March.
This April we will be racing at Lone Star Park where the 2 year olds of 2008 will be making their first appearances. We hope to have a few early runners this year and make ourselves known in some of the early 2 year old stake races.
Any questions about starting 2 year olds or placing retired racehorses please contact Dallas or Donna Keen and visit our website at www.dallaskeen.com .

Go Mercantile! Paid for himself 3X in a month!

By now almost everyone has congratulated Dallas Keen for his $10,000 claim for BK Racing. Mercantile has paid for himself three times this month.

Brad Kyles of BK Racing actually picked this gelding that was purchased just last year for $2,000,000 as a two year old in training. We claimed him at The Fair Grounds for the discounted price of $10,000. I am not sure if his previous trainer was playing liars poker to get him eligible for $10K starters or if he was sacrificing him for the win but either way we are glad to have him in the barn.

I wrote about Mercantile in a blog entry just a couple of weeks ago but now he has an allowance win to add to his 2nd place finish in the allowance race two weeks ago. Mercantile has now earned over $32,000 for his new connections in just 5 weeks after being claimed.

I am not sure where we will go next with Mercantile. Maybe a 10K starter, maybe go for the big purse on the NW2OT, but rest assured he is not through making waves for BK Racing. He seems to be getting better and better.
Good Luck Brad and Bradley Kyles!

Looking for Thoroughbred Owners wanting to Claim...

Purse Structure at the Fair Grounds makes it easy to recoup claiming investments.



The first week of the meet we claimed a horse named Mercantile from Tom Amoss for BK Racing, LLC for $10,000. Now this would have been just like any other claim except for the fact that Mercantile was purchased just last year from the Florida Fasig Tipton 2 year old in training sale for $2,000,000. OUCH!!!



Even though Mercantile looked good in the paddock the day of the race we were pleasantly surprised that evening when we went over him. He had no major issues and had a good throat. BK Racing was thrilled with the good news since claiming horses always carries some risk. Mercantile trained well over the next two weeks and had a nice half mile work.



Mercantile was entered back but not for $10,000 like we claimed him for. Dallas and Brad Kyles of BK Racing discussed trying him at an allowance level. It turned out to be a good choice. Mercantile ran second that day in the allowance race and nearly paid for himself on his first start for his new connections.



Other horses we have claimed for other owners have moved up as well. See the stories of Kinoko Man and Perfecty Seatle, both owned by Bob and Pat Sheetz at http://www.dallaskeen.com/claiminghorses.html as well as a few other claiming success stories.



Anyone that has known Dallas for any length of time remembers when he trained for Bob McCaslin. Bob and Dallas became good friends and successfully claimed hundreds of horses. Unfortunately, Bob passed away in 1997 but not before he became Lone Star Park's first leading owner and Dallas the first leading trainer of the inaugural Lone Star meet. Dallas went on the be leading trainer again the next year.



Dallas won the Bob McCaslin Memorial Stakes the year following Bob's death. The horse that won it was at one time owned by Bob but was claimed. One of Bob's friends, Charlie Lewis, claimed the horse back and he went off at huge odds. He won the stake despite not being the favorite. (not really related to the subject but a neat bit of info anyway)



With all that said we are looking for a few folks interested claiming horses at the Fair Grounds. The purse structure makes it easy to return your investment when you carefully select and claim horses that are competitive and can be ready to run back quickly after being claimed. You can watch the barn live on the web cams anytime by clicking here and using the word 'guest' as your login and your password and then choosing a network type. Please feel free to call Dallas and discuss claiming options. We have horses on a watch list but like input from owners too. If you see something that looks like a good claim we will be glad to help you in the process. Good luck and have wonderful Christmas everyone!

A neat story about our adopted daughter, Ne Ne

Two years ago Dallas and I took 2 horses to a little auction by our farm in Burleson, Texas. Since the horses had to be at the sale for several hours we took hay nets and water buckets for them. During the sale we stayed with our horses but I couldn't take my eyes off this poor skinny paint mare with a new black and white colt at her side. It was a very sad site. She was several hundred pounds under weight, covered in black mud, and had several abrasions all over her weak bony body. Fortunately her colt looked healthy and bright eyed.

As the sale went on and our horses were auctioned off to new owners I snuck out the back door and moved our horses hay nets and water buckets over to the pen with the mare and foal. A few minuets passed by before Dallas noticed they were missing. At first he thought someone had stolen them and then, (like a light bulb lit up above his head), he turned to me and said, "You are gonna buy those horses aren't you?"

Needless to say we bought the skinny paint mare and colt on her side. To our surprise both horses were registered and there was a breeders certificate with the mare who was bred back to the black and white colts sire. Pretty good buy for $500 I thought.

The colt turned out great and the mare, Sky Jets Babe, had a big healthy filly the next spring. We bred Sky back to our thoroughbred stallion, Oro Negra, for a 2007 foal. While the mare was nursing the filly we noticed on several occasions she would nurse other foals in the pasture too, sometimes two at a time. We started calling her our milk cow.

We were devastated this spring when she lost her foal. The beautiful colt was born but died shortly afterwards. While crying my eyes out I remembered an email I had received a few days before from a lady in Denton, Texas who had lost her mare moments after delivering a healthy filly. She was inquiring about a nurse mare. I picked up the phone at nearly midnight and called her. Her filly was doing well and was drinking powdered milk from a bucket but that is no substitute for a mother. We thought is was worth a try so she brought the filly to our farm early the next morning.

Sky knew it wasn't her baby. She squealed but never offered to kick the filly named Ne Ne but she would give her a little shove with her nose to move her away from her. That wasn't our biggest obstacle. Ne Ne was very independent. She would pin her ears at Sky and had no urge to nurse, she was a big girl and wanted to drink from a bucket.

We lifted the water bucket to high for Ne Ne to reach and didn't offer her the milk supplement for a couple of hours. Then we patiently showed her where the goods were while holding the mare to build the fillies confidence around her. We had to hold Sky for Ne Ne to nurse for the first day.

The next morning I took my 13 year old son Michael down to the barn to hold Sky but when Sky and Ne Ne heard us coming they went to work without any assistance from us. From that moment on that filly was Sky's filly and no one could tell her otherwise. Ne Ne was still independent but under a very watchful eye of our wonderful milk cow.

Well, the time has come and we weaned Ne Ne last month. Now it is time for Ne Ne to go back to her owners in Denton to live her life as a Western Pleasure horse. We are very sad we're loosing her but so happy that in our loss something was gained. Ne Ne is a big beautiful filly and could never have developed socially or physically without the gift of Sky Jet's Babe.

Sky Jets Babe is bred back to Oro Negra for an April foal. I can't wait to watch her at work again the pasture doing her favorite thing, being a milk cow.