Aftercare a 'Never-Ending Journey' for West Point Team

Private Show (Discreetly Mine) doesn't need to score big in either of the two $100,000 Thoroughbred Makeover disciplines he's entered in this weekend at the Kentucky Horse Park to win the respect and affection of his second-career trainer and rider, Erin Birkenhauer. The 4-year-old gelding managed to do that quite some time ago.

Private Show is unique among the entrants for the Retired Racehorse Project [RRP]'s signature competition in that he previously raced for a partnership managed by West Point Thoroughbreds, the national syndicate operated by Birkenhauer's parents, Terry and Debbie Finley. After Private Show was retired from an zero-for-five career on the track one year ago, Birkenhauer, who works out of Bowling Green, Kentucky, as West Point's racing manager, reacquired him from the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance-accredited facility where he had been unwinding and retraining.

“He's been a great horse for me,” said Birkenhauer. “I think one of the things I've tried to highlight through this whole process is that I'm an adult amateur. I don't compete on horses for a living. The barn that I keep him at is 30 minutes away from where I live, so it's at least an hour every day for me to go ride. I needed a horse who would be laid back, a gentleman, and not need to be lunged for an hour every day before I rode him. I work full time, and that was really important.”

Judging by his auction history and the promise of his pedigree, Private Show was not supposed to have been enjoying retirement so early. He initially sold for $65,000 at the 2013 Keeneland September yearling sale and West Point and co-owner Robert Masiello bought him for $210,000 at the Ocala Breeders' 2-year-old sale the following April. He debuted for that partnership at Belmont Park in the autumn of 2014 but failed to hit the board in two tries.

“I remember we loved him as a 2-year-old,” Birkenhauer recalled. “He's a big, good-looking horse. But he's not what you would expect, because he was a speed horse on the racetrack. Normally those types of horses are kind of fiery and on edge all the time. If you look at his past performances, he was on the lead in every one of his races. It really surprised me when I got him, because [headstrong] is not how he really is. We gelded him, but mostly because of performance. It wasn't really so much due to attitude. Then he had minor knee surgery at the end of his 2-year-old year.”

After a lackluster seventh in a Belmont maiden special weight in June 2015, “We dropped him in for a maiden $40,000 claimer at Saratoga that summer and he didn't run very well,” Birkenhauer said. “Then we sent him to Parx. He didn't run well for $25,000 either, and we didn't want to get to the point where we'd run him for maiden $10,000 somewhere and he'd end up in the wrong hands. More than anything, we just wanted to see him go to a good home instead of running him at the bottom.”

Even though West Point and Masiello made the decision to retire Private Show right after what turned out to be his final race Sept. 27, 2015, it was still a few weeks before the gelding could leave the racetrack. At that time, Birkenhauer said, Parx horses were under a quarantine to prevent the spread of the equine herpes virus and no Thoroughbreds could come or go.

“So eventually, as we do with most of our horses on the East Coast, we placed him with the South Jersey Thoroughbred Rescue and Adoption program,” Birkenhauer said. “We've worked really closely with them for years, and I grew up near that farm, so I've known [director] Erin [Hurley] for many years, and I trust her.”

At about the time Private Show was settling in to his transitional home, Birkenhauer was planning to compete in the 2015 version of Makeover. But 10 days before last year's event, her horse got hurt and she had to scratch.

Now fast-forward to January 2016, when Birkenhauer was scouting around for an easygoing horse, primarily to ride for pleasure, but perhaps also to prepare for this year's Makeover. She especially wanted to compete on a former West Point racer, and when she mentioned this to Hurley, she said the response was, “I have the perfect horse for you. Why don't you take Private Show? This is going to be one of those horses that you're going to be able to ride the day he gets on your farm.”

Birkenhauer said she always recalled Private Show as having a great disposition, but his take-everything-in-stride nature was even more evident after some down time in New Jersey.

“By the time I got him, he was not really a racetrack horse any more,” Birkenhauer said. “He'd been off the track for almost three months at that point. Some people have that notion that horses off the track can be crazy or 'hot,' but it's not always like that. People can be kind of on the fence about getting a horse off the track, but if you do your homework, you can find the right one.

“Sure, there are ups and downs,” Birkenhauer continued. “We missed a horse show a couple of weeks ago because of a foot abscess and I was really down and upset, but everybody goes through that. And I've just kind of learned that he's still growing, still filling out, and sometimes they can be a challenge when they make this transition.”

Private Show will compete in the RRP's show jumping and eventing disciplines. From the perspective of somebody who both works in the Thoroughbred industry and will be participating in her first Makeover, Birkenhauer said the thing that is impressive to her is how much positive feedback she is hearing about the event from people she knows in racing and sales circles.

“I feel like everybody in the industry is really kind of looking forward to it,” Birkenhauer said. “If you see the sponsors that Makeover has–the major Thoroughbred farms, the ownership groups–many of them are represented and are really supporting this, and I think this it's only going to evolve. I went to Keeneland the other day, and I probably got approached by five or six people who said, 'We're coming to the Makeover, we can't wait!'”

Terry Finley said Masiello and the other West Point partners who originally invested in Private Show “are still involved and tracking his progress.” Asked if had seen any traits in Private Show that hinted at how he might perform in a second career, Finley pointed to the gelding's athleticism.

“One of the things is, you try to buy good athletes,” Finley said. “[And even if that doesn't translate into success on the track,] they definitely have to be athletic to be successful in a competition like Makeover. I think it goes hand in hand, you take a good athlete [into a cross-discipline] and they're going to do well anywhere that they perform.”

Birkenhauer said the satisfaction she gets out of an event like Makeover is tied to seeing how Thoroughbreds can excel at various disciplines. It's something she wants to demonstrate to other people, she explained, even while learning more herself.

“I grew up eventing and riding jumpers,” Birkenhauer said. “I don't know anything about barrel racing. I don't know anything about polo. And the fact that I'm able to go to the Horse Park and show my horse off, but then also to see people who do something that I know nothing about, with a Thoroughbred that essentially followed the same journey as my horse did, I think that's super cool. They've all been on the same path–they raced, got retired, then went through a retraining program. Being able to see all the things a retired racehorse can do–there are about ten different Makeover disciplines–is kind of amazing.”

Finley, too, used the term “journey” in describing aftercare, but in a broader sense.

“One of the things we've done to get better as an industry over the past five or 10 years is we've brought attention to the different avenues that people can take to ultimately take care of the horses that they own,” Finley said. “You're not really in this business very long if you don't love horses. That was never the problem, people wanting to take care of them. It was just the ability to execute on that intention, and we're doing better at that.

“Aftercare is a never-ending journey,” he summed up. “This journey will go on for as long as we race horses.”