Discarded Thoroughbred filly in critical condition a month after her last race

Dance Madam might not make it.

The circumstances are dire for the emaciated, dehydrated, strangles-infested thoroughbred filly who last raced exactly one month ago, finishing more than 23 lengths behind the winner of a $15,000 claiming race at River Downs on July 16th.  The four-year-old chestnut daughter of Dance Master hadn't hit the board in 12 starts since she'd broken her maiden for a $5000 tag at the same oval in June of 2010.

The filly's lackluster efforts on the racetrack apparently doomed her to the discard pile.  Less than three weeks after her last start, Dance Madam was spotted by a good samaritan at the Sligo auction in Kentucky on Wednesday, August 3rd, where she was being offered for sale with several other thoroughbreds, including the three-year-old St. L'Enjoleur filly Ultimate Proof, at a venue frequented mostly by kill buyers seeking to load their slaughterhouse-bound trailers for Canadian butcheries.  The two fillies were purchased for cheap money by dealer Charlie Harris, who then cooperated with a coterie of thoroughbred advocates who raised the funds for their ransom.  Bot the horses' troubles were far from over.

The Kentucky division of The United States Equine Rescue League (USERL) became aware of their plight, and contacted Melissa Kauffman, a sometime equine rescuer who agreed to open her heart, and the gates of her Middlebury, Indiana farm, to quarantine and care for them.  "I didn't know who they were or anything about them," Melissa said, "but I knew they'd given everything they had when it was asked, and they didn't deserve not to get it back."

But when the fillies arrived, on Monday, August 15th, Melissa was shocked at what she saw.  Dance Madam still had the sweat marks from the saddle she wore in her last race, and an unwashed poultice on one of her legs, suggesting to Melissa that "they literally pulled her out of the race and said, 'See you later.'"

The filly is so severely dehydrated that she didn't urinate for the first 48 hours after drinking her fill.  "If she were in the hospital, she would be in critical condition," Melissa explained.  "Her legs were so swollen that you couldn't even tell she had joints.  She has bites all over her body."  Dance Madam's caslicked vulva had apparently been forcibly penetrated by a stallion at one of the layover feedlots where she'd languished, and as a result, it is torn and infected and her urethra is grossly swollen.  Strangles are exploding like volcanoes all over her wracked body.

Melissa is doing everything possible to stabilize Dance Madam, but the filly's prognosis is guarded, at best.  "I've never seen this degree of evil," she said, angrily.  "It does not become real until a horse like this sets foot in your yard.  How can it be that within one month after racing, she's at death's door?"  Referring to Dance Madam's pedigree, which has the iconic thoroughbreds Mr. Prospector, Nijinsky II, and Storm Cat in her third generation, Melissa shook her head and asked, "How do we look into her eyes and say:  'You're worthless.'"

Death on the Track

Just minutes before she fell and died in the stretch of the second race at Saratoga yesterday, Forest Whip was looking beautiful and seemingly relaxed in the paddock. The elegant bay daughter of Forestry walked calmly, gently swishing her tail. There wasn't a clue that anything was wrong. She didn't seem to have a care in the world, and I was impressed with her easy demeanor. She was making only her second start.

I happened to be watching Forest Whip because when I'd handicapped the race, I thought she could win it: a $60,000 maiden claimer against other two-year-old fillies going six furlongs. She was stepping down in class, and switching from turf to dirt: she looked interesting, both on paper, and as a pretty presence in the paddock. The last time I checked the tote board, as I stepped up to the window to place a modest bet on her, I realized that lots of other people liked Forest Whip's chances, too. She went off the favorite, at 9-5.

I could see through my binoculars that Forest Whip balked slightly as she was led up to the gate. With a little bit of coaxing, she went in without much fuss. In hindsight, it would have been better if she hadn't.

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Academy Award, one of Secretariat's last surviving sons, dies at Old Friends

Barely seven months after his heralded arrival at Old Friends, the 24-year-old stallion, Academy Award, died peacefully at the Georgetown, Kentucky thoroughbred sanctuary on August 24th, succumbing to laminitis and other infirmities. He was one of the last surviving sons of the great Secretariat.

Academy Award raced with distinction, notching five victories, including the Grade II Early Times Manhattan Handicap on the Belmont turf. He retired with earnings of $226,943.

Affectionately nicknamed, "Oscar," by a member of the Old Friends staff, the diminutive chestnut's retirement had been made possible through the efforts of actress Angie Dickinson and Boston-based TV producer Barbara Bowen, with additional support from Secretariat's owner, Penny Chenery, through the Secretariat Foundation. Prior to his arrival at Old Friends on January 29th of this year, Academy Award had been on the stallion roster at Win Row Farm in Lebanon, Ohio.

Though he had barely settled into his cushy life as a pampered retiree, Academy Award touched the hearts of those who cared for him, and today, they deeply mourn his loss. Barbara Bowen had first met Academy Award in 1994, when she visited Claiborne Farm, where he was then standing at stud. She'd lost track of him in the intervening years, but in the spring of 2009, she happened upon an ad in the Thoroughbred Times, in which the then 23-year-old stallion was being offered for sale for $6000. . .

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