There is a problem and John Stewart of Resolute Racing wants to be part of the solution. His goal is for the industry to find a way to give every horse that comes off the racetrack a second home. He knows that won't be cheap, which is why he will spend part of his Derby week hosting his Poker For Ponies tournament. His goal is to raise $500,000 that will be divided up among 50 aftercare organizations.
The event will take place on Thursday, May 1 at the Omni Hotel in Louisville. Players can buy a seat in the tournament for as much as $5,000 or for as little as $1,000.
“I am doing this because we have a huge responsibility,” Stewart said. “These are God's creatures and we have bred them to be reliant on us to care for them. As a breeder, I am a big advocate that if you bring them into the world you are responsible for them. Even if you sell them you should be responsible for them the rest of their lives and provide care for them. When I got into the industry I was shocked when I saw that this was a problem. This is a solvable problem. I'm trying to bring attention to it.”
This isn't the first example of Stewart's charitable work to help retired race horses. He's always trying to come up with new ideas to solve the problem. His other current project is to build a farm that can serve as a holding facility for horses coming off the track.
“I just bought a 150-acre farm that adjoins ours,” he said. “We're doing renovations on it so we can do aftercare and kind of prep these horses to go into some of these training programs. Some of these places have limited space. We can hold them until they're ready to go there or we can keep them.”
While his poker tournament will help 50 aftercare organizations, he says much more needs to be done.
“This is a stop-gap measure,” Stewart said. “We've got to do some things to put an end to this. I recognize that if you're running in $5,000 claiming races and if your horse doesn't get claimed, what are you going to do with that horse? I want to have a situation where if you can't afford your horse anymore we will take it off your hands. We're trying to provide options for people. I believe that 95% of the people in world are good people, but there are a few bad people. It's hard to be a trainer and operate with those thin margins. You may not want your horse to wind up in a kill lot, but if you can't afford to feed it and you don't want to sit there and watch it, what do you do? I want to create a stop-gap for those people. There will be no questions asked. No one is going to record your name and tell people that, hey, this trainer dropped a horse with us. It's not about that. It's about being a solution.”
Each poker player will be playing for one of the aftercare groups. Each group is guaranteed to receive $5,000. The groups aligned with the top five finishers will earn more.
Poker For Ponies raised over $100,000 last year.
“We did everything at the last minute,” Stewart said.
Stewart said it's unlikely that he will reach the $500,000 goal this year, but will likely earn between $250,000 to $300,000 for the charities. With everyone who pays the $1,000 fee to play, Stewart will double their contribution and donate an additional $1,000 of his own.
“It's a community effort and we're trying to be participative when it comes to helping out these smaller independent groups,” he said. “There's a lot of money given to the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance and all of the organization involved in this have to be accredited by them. But we will give the money directly to the organizations.”
For more information and to enter go to pokerforponies.net.
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