CANTER Ohio: Providing retiring racehorses with opportunities for new careers after the finish line.

I stop at this site once in a while when I wanna play, "hmm, if I were horse-shopping, which horse would I buy." CANTER Ohio: Providing retiring racehorses with opportunities for new careers after the finish line. I've always been impressed by Canter's determination to place ex racehorses in new homes and careers after their usefulness at the track is spent--at usually such an early age too. I read somewhere that among the various breeds of horses, the ones most likely to end up in the kill pen are first, thoroghbreds, then arabians, then something like standard breds--I think that's after they've (the standard breds) gone from track, to hauling an amish buggy around day in and day out for a couple of years til they're near death anyway, and arabs, well, don't really need to explain why they end up there, but thoroghbreds-- so few out of the many prospects make the grade or bring in the cash enough to justify the feed and vet bills. Then, the same as arabs, thoroghbreds are just too high on the maintenance scale for people who want a pleasure horse. The hunter-jumpers and dressage junkies don't just want a plain old thoroughbred anymore, as the warmblood, or any kind of european sporthorse is the thing to have. But I, like some others ,still happen to enjoy thoroughbreds. I love their personalities and their sensitivity and I get sad when I hear about their so often unhappy fates, like one example our local canter points out in the trainer section adoption ads:

SOLD - Big Time Sentence - At the SugarCreek, OH auction kill pen -- His fate is unknown!! Please help us stop this from happening by donating money to our "Pal Joey" fund to facilitate the purchase of these "at risk" horses.
If you go to that page and see the picture of Big Time perhaps the sad truth will hit home that these quality animals end up meeting this kind of fate. Such a waste, well, I hope he tastes good to someone in France or makes a nice handbag for someone -- our local canter is asking for foster care volunteers, especially for the Beulah park horses. Now you bet that if i were lucky enough to have my own successful horse operation, I would always reserve at least one stall for a foster or rescue project. To me that goes with the territory--to offer something back to the equine community that I derive so much joy and happiness from and was probably benefiting financially . Even if I was only breaking even, I would be compelled to make that small sacrifice. What the heck is an extra ration of grain and hay going to set you back, you know?