Southern California Thoroughbred Rescue
Rescue and Rehoming Services for Thoroughbred Ex-Racehorses
How You Can Help
Our most pressing need is for low cost foster homes and, especially, permanent homes for the thoroughbreds that we purchase at auction. Please forward this website address to friends that might be interested in providing a home for a lovely thoroughbred. We can be contacted at sctbrescue@live.com by prospective foster and permanent homes. Foster care might involve a one to twelve month commitment to a particular thoroughbred. Permanent rehoming involves a lifetime commitment to a horse. Please see our "About Rehoming" page to read our rehoming application form, and a sample of our rehoming contract.
Many of the thorougbreds sold at livestock auctions are young and, even if they have suffered minor injuries and wear and tear through their racing years, they have many possible future career trajectories. Many will make excellent pleasure and trail horses, and others are amateur sporthorse prospects for both Western and English riding disciplines. The thoroughbreds that we rescue typically have wonderful temperaments, and want to be "pets"; mainly they want to belong to a loving human being.
Is Fostering For You?
If you are or have been a horse owner; have a stall, pen, corral, or pasture area that is currently unused; some experience with thoroughbreds; and you would like to support the rescue of a former racehorse, perhaps you could foster one of our horses? SCTR will supply, or fund the cost of, feed, farrier, veterinary and dental care while the horse is with you, and regularly visit the horse to monitor its successful rehabilitation. We do not, in general, pay "board" rates however unless a substantial discount for charitable purposes can be offered to us for the service. Any out of pocket expenses incurred by a foster home are reimbursed promptly.
Fostering, which involves direct participation in the rehabilitation of a rescued thoroughbred, can be a very rewarding experience, while not involving a permanent or significant financial commitment to a horse. Every foster home must be visited in advance by one of our members, and each foster signs our "Foster Care Contract". Please contact us at sctbrescue@live.com if you are interested in fostering a rescued thoroughbred.
Can You Quarantine?
Of particular importance for SCTR is to have a number of foster homes in which effective "quarantining" of the horses that we purchase, for a period of thirty days following their rescue, can be completed. What this involves is the physical isolation of the horse from other equines, at a minimum distance of thirty feet at all times, and the careful practice of biosecurity guidelines to prevent the spread of possible diseases carried by, or suffered by, the horse.
Typically, horses arriving at livestock auctions directly from the racetrack and breeding farm have been regularly vaccinated for most contagious and other diseases, just as you vaccinate your own horse. However, when horses are excessively stressed, as a result of the dramatic change in routine that they suffer while at auction or on dealer's lots, they become uniquely susceptible to illness, just as you or I would. Outbreaks of "strangles", an unpleasant but rarely fatal upper respiratory disease caused by streptococcus equi, at auction lots and feedlots are a common consequence of such stresses for horses.
While SCTR has been fortunate in not yet having a horse become ill following its rescue, we would hate to risk the health and safety of anyone else's equine by failing to follow appropriate quarantine protocol. You can read more about appropriate quarantine and biosecurity protocol, and about the upper respiratory disease "strangles", by clicking on the links below. If, after reading these materials, you are willing and able to offer us a quarantine area for a rescued thoroughbred, please contact us at sctbrescue@live.com.
http://www.aaep.org/pdfs/control_guidelines/Biosecurity_instructions%201.pdf
http://www.aaep.org/pdfs/control_guidelines/Streptococcus%20equi%20var.pdf
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/horses/facts/prot_strangles.htm
http://www.acvim.org/uploadedFiles/Consensus_Statements/Strangles.pdf
