Man O' War Project

Owner, breeder, humanitarian, and philanthropist Earle Mack was bestowed with the William T. Young Humanitarian Award by the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders (KTOB) Wednesday morning. The former U.S. Ambassador, who has been breeding and racing Thoroughbreds for nearly six decades and has had 25 black-type winners, including Canadian Triple Crown winner Peteski (Affirmed) and U.S. MGISW November Snow (Storm Cat), is well known for his humanitarian work, both in the industry and in the greater world. A long-time supporter of numerous equine charities and a strong proponent of Thoroughbred...

Earle Mack, a former U.S. Ambassador, owner, breeder and founder of the Man O' War Project will be awarded the Eclipse Award of Merit in recognition for a lifetime of outstanding achievement at the 51st Eclipse Awards at Santa Anita Park on February 10. The announcement was made by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA), Daily Racing Form and the National Turf Writers And Broadcasters (NTWAB). Over the course of his life, the press release reads, "the honorable Earle I. Mack, who has burnished a remarkable career serving his country...

Columbia University Irving Medical Center has published the third and final paper detailing the clinical findings and results of the Man O' War Project, the ground-breaking research on equine-assisted therapy (EAT) as an effective treatment for veterans suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This critical paper, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, focuses on the important clinical results of the open trial undertaken by Dr. Prudence Fisher and Dr. Yuval Neria, principal investigators for this first-of-its-kind university study. "Our findings that both PTSD and depressive symptoms significantly improved are...

With the July 1, 2022, implementation date looming for the nationwide regulatory Authority mandated by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) to go into effect, Charles Scheeler, the chairman of the Authority's board of directors, on Sunday outlined the timetable for the sport's new ruling body to be fully operational. Speaking via pre-recorded video during Sunday's 69th Annual Round Table Conference on Matters Pertaining to Racing that was hosted virtually by The Jockey Club (TJC), Scheeler said the Authority is currently developing its anti-doping and safety programs side by...

My sincere thanks to Ms. Sue Finley for the compelling article about the Man O' War Project  in the TDN Thursday. I whole heartedly appreciate Earle Mack's support of our veterans. I have only mentioned my own personal story about PTSD to a few people. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 my father left Columbia University and enlisted in the Air Force. He was 17, turning 18. He went to Officers Training School and was promptly shipped to the South Pacific to work in the intelligence corps....

They'll run the Belmont Stakes next Saturday, and as we lead up to the event, there will be more conversation about all of the unpleasant things we've been talking about lately: syringes in barns, drugs and bans, guilt or innocence, crime and punishment. We'll be asked to justify our existence, the necessity of our sport and our livelihood. What purpose do we really serve, anyway, they'll ask? Like everyone else in the sport, I think we serve a purpose. But I also think we have the potential to serve a...

by T.D. Thornton and Sue Finley Although using equine-assisted therapies (EAT) to help people overcome post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been long believed to be effective via anecdotal results, a recent exploratory scientific study declares that it "is the first to demonstrate that EAT can affect functional and structural changes in the brains of patients with PTSD." The findings are groundbreaking not only from a scientific standpoint, but also from the perspective that the peer-reviewed work by Columbia University Irving Medical Center and New York State Psychiatric Institute researchers published...