Margaret Ransom, an award-winning writer who has worked in the horse racing industry for decades, recently moved from California to Texas and started The Bridge Sanctuary. Its mission is to bridge the gap between forgotten horses and horses always safe. Here is his latest story.

By Margaret Ransom

A year ago, the highly respected thoroughbred trainer Beau Greely passed away. A month ago, The Bridge Sanctuary saved the Kentucky Oaks lone starter from Greely’s successful but too brief career.

I can’t help but think how disappointed Greely would be to know that a horse he was so proud to care for was dumped like a trash after giving his entire life to the thoroughbred industry. The conditioner, who came from one of Kentucky’s most respected families and was a fourth generation rider, always put horse welfare first, so it’s easy to guess what he would think of the situation. recent of this mare and know he would be pissed off.

Meet Viviane

Her name at the Jockey Club is Go For Glamor, but here at The Bridge, we call her Vivian. She’s definitely classy and glamorous, despite the cuts and scuffs she picked up in the pen, so the name – given to her by our board member who loved the old Hollywood starlet type name – fits perfectly.

Vivian is a Kentucky-bred daughter of classic winner and millionaire Pine Bluff and unreleased Seeking the Gold mare Seeking the Cure. She was raised in Kentucky by the Andrea Singer Pollack Revocable Trust and campaigned through her Columbine stables. Greely has coached Vivian throughout her career, which ended in 2003 with a 12-2-2-3 line, $ 146,760.

Vivian finished third in the Santa Anita Oaks (G1) and Fantasy Stakes (G2) in 2003 and raced that year in the Kentucky Oaks (G1), where she struggled a lot and finished last. Her exercise rider, Andy Durnin, said she lost both front shoes in the Oaks, which in hindsight likely contributed to her terrible trip, but he remembers Vivian fondly anyway.

“Yes I remember that trip she lost both front shoes in the run and they were good because I remember wearing her for the blacksmith Tom Halpenny who was often shipped from California (first class) to shoe for important races, ”Durnin recalled the time spent with Vivian in Kentucky. “As in most cases, she could have been shod in California before she left, but Beau wanted Tom. It was a wonderful time.

“I remember my involvement (Vivian) very well and she was always such a pro.”

Durnin would know. In addition to several first-year winners and champions, he rode regularly for Greely and other coaches, including Hall of Famer Neil Drysdale, he is perhaps best known as the Kentucky Derby winner’s practice runner. (G1) 2000 Fusaichi Pegasus.

Three more winless starts as a 3 year old sent Vivian to Pollock’s brood mare group where she was bred with some of the best stallions in the game including Into Mischief, Johannesburg, Harlan’s Holiday and First Samurai. Unfortunately, probably because she produced no stars, she was sold to Keeneland in November 2018 for just $ 13,000 foal to Goldencents and went missing after her birth in February 2019. Her price that day was not than $ 500 more than the stallion ordered from Spendthrift Farm for the 2018 breeding season.

This colt, Plenty of Cents, is currently training for his debut at Remington Park and is listed as having been bred by the person who signed the sales slip for Vivian at Keeneland three years ago.

Overall, Vivian has had nine foals and seven winners, although none have gotten a black-type so far, and her now 5-year-old son Kumar (by Into Mischief) is still fighting. in New York by claiming a company without a ton of recent success competing closer to the bottom. I contacted his trainer and also offered him a safety net if he needed it.

Broodmares deserve better

It’s hard to understand why Vivian was found in Oklahoma at the age of 21, depressed with large cuts all over her body. What she did for the two and a half years between having her last foal and then is a mystery, but she is now safe here at The Bridge.

One of the most disturbing things about Vivian’s situation is that another rescue (which was in quarantine full or she would have been there) told us they knew several people and other rescues who expressed their interest in saving her when her kill pen videos made social media tours, but when her dealings with the races failed to return messages and texts asking for help, she was left there, her fate switched between being saved and shipped. So when I heard about her situation and after talking to my board, we all immediately agreed to save her.

While The Bridge Sanctuary is a place of redemption and second chance, a place free from anger and blame, Vivian’s situation and the idea that brood mares – the foundation of the racing and breeding industry thoroughbred – too often thrown away like garbage because they don’t. not living up to someone’s standards causes anger.

And, frankly, a few tears. I want to know why it is okay to sell a full aged mare at any auction without a safety net in place for her future safety. We all know there isn’t enough money for follow-up, but broodmares that no longer produce or whose foals have never been able to capture lightning in a bottle also deserve at least some of it? Don’t they deserve the industry’s help when they find themselves in situations, like Vivian’s, that they don’t deserve to be?

I don’t have answers, but I would like to think there are. For all of those who do their mares good, there is one who doesn’t, putting their life’s worth solely on what they produce and how much money can be made with them.

Happy forever

It’s a cliché, but since arriving here at The Bridge, Vivian looks and feels like a girl half her age. Her cuts are mostly healed, she is out of quarantine and is roaming the acreage, once again living her best life and the luxury life she more than earned. She has bonded with our other abandoned broodmare, Blanche, and they are best friends. And she and George sparked a little romance.

Either way, Vivian will always and forever be safe, nurtured, loved, and cared for. She is inherently kind and happy, looks curiously at the goats and donkeys in the paddock near her stall, is the first to neigh in the morning when I enter the barn and the last for kisses and treats before bed . She is a good eater, she loves the first sip of a tub or bucket of freshly washed water and prefers cheap apple wafers over mints or even carrots, so we have a giant bag of this just for she.

I would love to know more about his life especially the past 2 and a half years so if anyone knows and can give me any information I would appreciate it.

Greely and I weren’t friends when he was a California coach, although we were friendly and the same age. And we had a lot of the same friends and we socialized a bit. I was lucky enough to see him train, however, and I knew he was as good a rider as they were. I wrote about a few of his charges a long time ago when writing about racing was my passion, but never Vivian unfortunately. And knowing what I know about the coach, I have to believe he would be appalled that she was in the precarious position she was found in and relieved that she was safe.

We have incurred significant costs since Vivian’s arrival and in addition to paying her bail, she was in desperate need of farrier work and special veterinary care including vaccinations and dental treatment. If you want to help us help Vivian, please contact us.

The Bridge Sanctuary is a Texas 501 (c) (3) nonprofit, so donations are tax deductible. You can donate on our website at thebridgesanctuary.com, PayPal at [email protected] Venmo at @ TheBridge-Sanctuary.

I owe a lot of gratitude to the people here at USRacing.com who support my mission to help horses and allow me to write about the issues of thoroughbred racing and breeding that mean something to me.

Rest in peace, Beau. This girl is safe.

A California native and longtime rider, Margaret Ransom is a graduate of the University of Arizona’s Race Track Industry Program. She made her racing debut working in the advertising departments at Calder Racecourse and Hialeah Park, as well as the Gulfstream Park racing office in South Florida. She then spent six years in Lexington, KY, at BRISnet.com, where she helped create and develop the company’s popular newsletters: Handicapper’s Edge and Bloodstock Journal. has assisted in the Santa Anita Park Advertising Department and has contributed to many other racing publications including HorsePlayer Magazine and Trainer Magazine. She then spent seven years at HRTV and HRTV.com in various roles as researcher, programming assistant, producer, and social media and marketing manager.
She has also walked and groomed racers, worked in elite sales in Kentucky for premier shippers and volunteers for several racehorse retirement organizations, including CARMA. In 2016, Margaret received the prestigious Stanley Bergstein Writing Award, sponsored by Team Valor. , and received an honorable mention at the Eclipse Award for her story, “The Shocking Untold Story of Maria Borell”, which appeared on USRacing.com. The article and the stories that followed helped save 43 abandoned and neglected Thoroughbreds in Kentucky and also helped create a new animal welfare law in Kentucky known as the “Borell Law. “. more than half of the Breeders’ Cups since. She counts Holy Bull and Arrogate as her all-time favorite horses. She lives in Robinson, Texas, with her longtime partner, Tony. She is the Executive Director of the 501 (c) (3) nonprofit horse rescue, The Bridge Sanctuary.