Rescue effort brings attention, second chance to former racehorse

Talk about a long shot.

It would have been easy to bet against the scruffy brown horse in the small pen in Emporia. His dark head hung just above the frozen mud, his one good eye cloudy and unfocused, perhaps as if he were imagining another time, another place.

But Kristin Chambers felt a connection when she looked at the horse that was bound for a slaughterhouse in Mexico.

She took a chance.

“We have got to keep this wonderful old man off the truck,” Chambers wrote Dec. 13 on a Web site forum dedicated to rescuing horses from slaughter.

“He gave so much to so many, and now we are all he has.”

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Twenty-eight minutes later, someone on the forum offered to pay the horse’s “bail,” a payment that would allow Chambers to save his life. More help would follow.

Chambers’ gamble paid off.

The horse, Clever Allemont, once was a high-stakes racehorse who ran with the biggest names in the business. The effort to save him brought national attention to his glorious past and turned an uncertain present into what’s expected to be an honorable future.

Rescuer

Chambers rescued her first horse three years ago, a gut-level impulse buy of a “bag of bones” named Gypsy. Soon, word spread that she had a soft spot for old horses.

In October, she started a non-profit horse rescue, Winding Road Equine Rescue & Retirement Inc., Waverly. With her business partner, she rescues horses that were abused, neglected and unwanted. When possible, she tries to find them new homes or new purposes.

“I can’t even begin to explain love,” she said of her work. “As a child I brought home every stray I could. It’s just an innate love of animals.”

Ironically, Chambers maintains a good working relationship with a dealer who often purchases horses from auction to ship to slaughter in Canada or Mexico.

The buyer called her about a palomino that was “too pretty to ship” to slaughter. Chambers visited the barn Dec. 13 to take pictures of the palomino.

“Can you do anything for this one?” the buyer asked her, pulling papers from the racing industry’s Jockey Club from his overalls.

Chambers recognized some of the names on the papers — names like Eugene Klein and D. Wayne Lukas. But it just took one look at the horse and she was committed to his rescue.

New life, old friends

In addition to the offer to help buy Clever Allemont, horse lovers flooded message boards with encouragement, advice and offers to pay for food, vet care and supplies. Within 24 hours, Chambers learned Clever Allemont had been accepted to Old Friends, a sort of “retirement home” for quality racehorses.

Michael Blowen, founder and president of Old Friends in Georgetown, Ky., said the effort to rescue Clever Allemont shows great teamwork and an increasing awareness of the plight of old racehorses — especially those bound for slaughter.

Blowen, a former reporter for the Boston Globe who fell in love with the thoroughbred racing industry, eventually learned the dark fate of many retired racehorses.

Like Chambers, he wanted to make a difference.

Blowen started Old Friends in 2003 to provide a dignified retirement for racehorses, as well a place for tours and education. Old Friends has grown to include 40 horses, and Blowen said he gets as many as six calls each day seeking placement for a horse.

“If we have the space, we take them,” he said. “Some of it depends on a horse’s story.”

It helped that Blowen remembered Clever Allemont from the horse’s racing days in the mid-1980s, and that space just had become available.

Blowen quickly agreed to take him.

Foster parents

Jeanne and Ray Mason breed quarter horses at their ranch. After learning about Chambers’ efforts to save Clever Allemont, they offered to serve as his “foster parents” for a couple of weeks until his trip to Old Friends. Chambers did not have adequate facilities to house a stallion, but the Masons did at their ranch, Donegal Quarter Horses.

Clever Allemont arrived at his new, temporary home in the middle of a bitterly cold ice storm. Soon, he learned to recognize Ray Mason as the provider of a good meal, “blubbering” a welcome to him, as Jeanne Mason called it. He thrived under their brief care.

During Clever Allemont’s stay, e-mails, phone calls, media attention and visitors flooded the two families’ businesses. Each day, Chambers and the Masons learned more about his past while preparing for his future.

He and Chambers left Williamsburg for Old Friends early Friday morning. A press conference is scheduled for 2 p.m. today at Old Friends.

At Old Friends, he will be thoroughly examined by the facility’s veterinarian and will spend his nights in a barn for a few days before he’s released to spend nearly all of his time outdoors.

For Clever Allemont, who came perilously close to slaughter, the rest of his life now includes having the run of lush pastures, the company of champion racehorses and visits from adoring fans.

“I think he really beat the odds on this deal,” Chambers said.

Vickie Moss can be reached at vmoss@ottawaherald.com.

For more information on non-profit groups dedicated to the rescue and retirement of horses: