Dallas and I have been raising money for the rescue, retirement and retraining of exracehorses since December when we formed Remember Me Racehorse Rescue Foundation. Today, I had an inspiration. After the races we waited around to congratulate Larry Jones on Friesan Fire's big victory in the Risen Star and I told him about our non profit organization. I asked Larry for Friesan Fire's shoes so we could auction them on EBay and he offered me his halter as well. Not only is Larry a wonderful horsemen, more importantly he is a horse lover and a big supporter of horse rescue.
I also hit up Brett Calhoun who offered a framed print of Barbaro and asked Steve Asmussen for help and he said he would get us something really nice for our auction.
My mission now is to acquire a few one of a kind objects that not just anyone could get there hands on and sell them on EBay with all proceeds going to Remember Me Rescue.
Our most recent successful rescue was a 12 year old gelding named Joe Favorite. Joe ran his 101st start at Retama Park and my phone was ringing off the wall with people concerned for his safety. Joe had raced 6 times in the previous 40 days. The next morning we sent someone over to ask the trainer if he would consider selling Joe and he agreed to sell him for $500. Being a new rescue organization we didn't have the funds to purchase Joe and to continue to fund the horses we already have in our program. I immediately got online and asked for help from the Fans of Barbaro on the Alex Brown Racing site along with mentioning Joe on the Dallas Keen Racing Stable website and our blog. Within 4 hours we raised enough money to purchase Joe from his trainer, pay to ship him to our farm, and enough to pay for Joe's care for about 2 months.
The project I am current working on has been a little more difficult. I received a phone call from Angelo Trosclair of Thoroughbred Transport a couple of weeks ago concerning a few horses in Louisiana that needed homes when an owner decided to quit the business. Angelo was contacted by the owner because he wanted to take them to a local auction barn. Being that Angelo is a huge supporter of horse rescue he asked them to give us a chance to help with the horses before they were sold to the highest bidder.
As it turned out there were a more than a few horses, there were 20 horses that needed immediate placement. As of today we have placed 4 of the 20 horses and saved them from slaughter. Now our time is ticking. I only have about two weeks to get the others to safety or the owner will have another transporter who has made him an offer for the remaining horses pick them up.
My one of a kind fund raiser will help pay for this rescue project including the transport, care, and retrain these remaining horses for new careers. I am asking everyone to share this information with everyone they know and go to our Remember Me Rescue website at http://www.teamkeen.com/ to donate funds if you are able. If you wish to donate an item for our auction please contact me at remembermerescue@live.com . We will also donate a portion of all proceeds from the sales of horse supplies and training aids from Keen Equine Products.
All donations are tax deductible and will go directly to fund the rescue and placement of exracehorses.
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2 comments:
Interesting post. Think its an incredible cause and I'm going to consider donating to it. I'm new to this blog and have to say how impressed I am with it. You write very well.
How's twitter treating you, have you seen yourself over on the homepage yet?
Hey, there is new code for a widget version of the standings, if you don't like the widget there are new standings, go to the TBA widget page, click Get this Widget, below the standings. let me know if you make any changes.
patrickjpatten@yahoo.com
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