In 15 starts, My Lil Dude won two races, hit the board six times, and earned $57,620, competing in Louisiana. Drive for Fun, a son of Distorted Humor, was more successful, winning three times and earning just under $200,000. But that wasn't enough to save either of them from being shipped from Evangeline Downs in May and ending up in a kill pen, the last step before crossing over the border to Mexico to be slaughtered.
That's the fate of 20,000 American horses every year, an unknowable number of them Thoroughbred racehorses, who are slaughtered for human consumption in foreign countries.
As recently as a decade ago, the number was far higher, with an estimated 166,000 horses slaughtered in 2012. But animal lobbyists were able to push Congress to attach a rider to the farm bill to defund USDA inspectors in equine slaughterhouses. Since the meat can not be used for human consumption without inspection, it effectively ended horse slaughter in the U.S.
But today, an estimated 17,000 American horses cross the border into Mexico, and another 3,000 into Canada to be slaughtered, every year.
Make no mistake; slaughter is not euthanasia. It is a brutal blugeoning to death, and before the last U.S. plant closed, the USDA had documented unspeakable cruelties.
Except for Resolute Racing's John Stewart, that would have been the fate of My Lil Dude and Drive For Fun. Active on social media, Stewart saw that the two were in a kill pen in northern Louisiana, waiting for transport across the border to Mexico where they would be slaughtered, and stepped in.
“Someone ran these horses in claiming races and they didn't get claimed,” said Stewart. “So they just took them and dumped them.”
Stewart arrived in the sport like a blitzkrieg, amassing top-class broodmares, weanlings, yearlings and racing stock-a total of 120 horses–in under a year, all over the globe, spending the money he earned as the managing partner and chief investment officer at Middleground Capital. He famously started his career as an hourly line worker at the Toyota plant in Georgetown, Ky., switching careers to private equity in 2007. His most expensive acquisition was Goodnight Olive, for whom he paid $6,000,000 at the 2023 Fasig-Tipton November Sale. But you get the impression that Dude and Dudley are every bit as important to him as she is.
The pair now live at Resolute Farm in a 14-stall barn that houses non-racing horses–a collection of trail horses, a 20-plus year-old Saddlebred saved from slaughter who arrived on Thanksgiving and has since been renamed Turkey Tom, and Turkey Tom's best friend, a miniature pony named Dexter, also plucked from a kill pen. They live in spacious, airy stalls at night, and roam the vast fields during the day, with a dedicated staff to care for them.
My Lil Dude (now just Dude) and Drive For Fun (now Dudley) have needed some time to turn around not only their physical condition, but their mental state as well.
“When they got here, it was really sad,” said Stewart. “Horses are smart animals. And they know exactly what's going on. They're not in training any more. They're being moved around.
These horses went straight from the track to a kill pen. And they're not being fed, they're around all these other horses that are in not good condition. It just wears on the psyche of the horse. And so when they got here, they would barely look at you, and when they stood in the field, they wouldn't come to you. Our horses come to us right away when they see us. And so, we started the process of rehabilitating them. And we're lucky to have the resources on our farm to do just that.”
Dude and Dudley are brought out for a visit, are now clearly comfortable with people–as is Stewart with them–and are very attached to one another.
Stewart's entry into the sport was as a businessman. But after purchasing the former Shadwell Farm and populating it with horses, he says he has become more and more drawn to the animal.
He has taken up riding the trail horses under the tutelage of his social media manager and trail horse division manager Tess Kiritsy and now rides the farm two to three days a week.
Stewart raised $200,000 for aftercare at this year's Kentucky Derby with a poker tournament. Now, it appears he has decided to do more.
Drive For Fun and Tess Kiritsy | Katie Petrunyak photo
“I've not been in the sport for a year,” he said. “But there are some things that just flabbergasted me that are allowed to happen. I was talking about this situation to some people in the industry, and he said, `oh, our horses are chipped, and we've put it measures to make sure they don't end up in kill pens.' He was a really credible person in the industry and he thought this wasn't actually happening. But that's a lie. It's a real thing. And it's not a small problem. It's a big problem.”
Stewart said he felt the issue might be too upsetting for many people in racing to contemplate.
“No one answer solves all the problems,” he said. “But you can't just say the problems are too big, I can't do anything about it because I can't solve the whole problem. Right? That's impossible for me, too. But what I can do is solve the problem as it relates to me as an owner and a breeder.”
For Stewart, the responsibility starts with the latter-the breeder.
“My view–and the way that I'm handling on my farm–is that I think whoever breeds the horse is ultimately responsible for the horse, period,” he said. “We bring it into this world, just like children. You should be responsible for them. And so that means tracking those horses. If you're in a situation where you're selling your horses to other people, your responsibility doesn't end with you just giving that horse to somebody else, and saying, `well, I sold it. It's not my responsibility any more.' You brought the horse into the world.”
In an effort to be as transparent as possible, Resolute plans to dedicate a section of their upcoming website to tracking all of the horses they breed throughout their lives. “There's technology to help us to do that,” he said. “Does it stop somebody from doing something bad? No. But it puts the onus on us to regularly check in with them to see if they sell to somebody, and they sell to somebody else. We're going to be checking in with the person that they sold to and finding out what the status of the horse is, and what's going on.”
On its website, Evangeline Downs says it is committed to “being part of the solution.”
Asked if any investigation had been launched into how Drive For Fun went from a May 1 start at their track for owner/trainer Derrick Ward to a kill pen 13 days later, David Strow, the Vice President for Corporate Commucations for the track, replied by email: “Evangeline Downs has a strict anti-slaughter policy in place, and we have zero tolerance for this abhorrent practice. When an allegation is brought to our attention, we will provide that information to state officials and the HBPA for further investigation. However, for legal reasons we cannot comment on specific allegations or actions taken.”
As Stewart said, one person isn't going to be able to solve the problem. Animal lobbyists are currently working to pass the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act, which deals with the issue from a food safety standpoint. Because Thoroughbreds are given medication and treatments that are not allowed to be used in animals intended for food, the SAFE Act would require trucks crossing the border to produce paperwork which includes proof of plans for quarantine, and other paperwork necessary for breeding or showing. According to its backers, forging that paperwork is expensive and risky financially for kill buyers, and would effectively erase the small margins on which they operate.
But until the bill finds a champion in the House and the Senate, Stewart said he will keep talking about it.
“Maybe people think I'm naive because I'm just getting into the game,” said Stewart. “But I'm a pretty sophisticated business person. I know that there's a cost for everything. And that's what people in the industry have to understand. There are a lot of people in the industry. Most of the people in the industry recognize the problems. Very few people are willing to contribute out of their pocket to solve the problems, but that's how it's going to have to happen.
“There's no way I can take on that whole industry problem. But we do have the ears of a lot of people. So what I can do as one of the owners who's become more prominent because of our position in the industry is to highlight this by openly talking about it as a problem. Raising awareness about a problem is the first step to solving it.”
In the meantime, Stewart is enjoying just being around the animals.
“They're in better shape,” he says, of Dude and Dudley. “They have gained over 100 pounds since we've gotten them here on the farm. Whenever I see any of the horses that came out of traumatic experiences just become a horse and just realize that people aren't here to hurt you…” he says, struggling to explain the obvious pride he takes in what he has done for the horses.
“They know they're in an area where they're safe and people are going to take care of them. That's what really makes me feel good about what I'm doing in the in the industry. My horses aren't just racehorses to me. They're not. I know each one of them. I spend time with them. I enjoy being around them. I got into it because of the racing side of it. But, now on a farm, you're in it because these animals are part of your family.”
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