My Job

1

In February, I got a job at Mindale Farms, a Standardbred racehorse breeding stable. They breed babies to sell to other trainers who will race them. I knew a little bit about racing from this site, but having a real world peak into the trotting/pacing side of racing has been fascinating.

My job is to lead horses, clean stalls, scrub buckets, and occasionally groom. Despite the fact that I don’t do anything impressive, it’s great to serve the future racers of the track. Even if I do work seven days a week for long hours each day.

This year was a dominated by the fillies, but not by much. :slight_smile:
[color=red]6 fillies, [color=blue]4 colts, [color=purple]2 stillborn

I don’t have time to take pictures while I’m at work, but here are a few things on Quik Pulse Mindale, one of Mindale Farm’s more successful racers. His mother, Midnight Stage (barn name = Midnight or Middy), is a mare that I know personally because I clean her stall and lead her from the pastures daily. She’s a real sweetheat, but has some bad arthritis in her front legs. She’s sometimes bullied by the other ladies since she can’t stand up for herself. All she does is hobble away. Poor girl.

News Article: Quik Pulse Mindale Qualifies

Racing Form: Windsor Racing

YouTube: Balmoral Park win
Really watch at 1:19. I was impressed.
(They spelled his name wrong on the video.)

And this is Beach Buoy Mindale. Pedigree. His dam, All My Hopes (barn name = Hope), is a beautiful bay mare. She’s a flightly creature, shying at things like trash cans. She can be a bit of a bully to other mares, too. The boss is thinking about selling her at the next broodmare auction.

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Sounds like a very neat job!

At the farm I work at for the past three years we had about 50 standardbred broodmares on the farm that my boss did all the repro work on. Took me about a month but I could soon name every horse without looking at their neckstraps, sort of difficult when most of them are the same color, dark bay!

The best was when we first got them and I would go out with my boss to palp the mares and he’d tell me to go get so-and-so. I’d ask him what the mare look like and he’d smirk at me and say. “The bay mare.”

Then when I went out and started looking at neckstraps and would walk away when it wasn’t the mare I was looking for he’d yell to me “No, the other bay mare!”

Pretty soon I was the one laughing when I was the only one who could identify them by afar. >:D

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I can really relate to that! They really do all look the same at first. I can identify all of the adults from afar, but the yearlings? Forget it. They all have the same exact features. I sometimes wonder if they’ve ever mixed up horses at Mindale and got sold with the wrong pedigree…  >:D