Gate To Greatness: One Gelding At A Time

Auto working his new job in South Dakota (Photo courtesy of Dorothy Snowden).

If you subscribe to the theory that things happen for a reason or things happen when they happen this blog will reconfirm your belief and, for those Doubting Thomases, perhaps you’ll be convinced otherwise.

In the racing lexicon we use the term “repurpose” when referring to a retired racehorse who, with the help of many people and some luck, will find a safe haven on a rescue farm with the hope of being retrained, or “repurposed.”

Similarly, “repurpose” is exactly what Dale Simantin and his partner in business and life, Dorothy Snowden, had to do. For nearly two decades Dale and Dorothy ran a successful Thoroughbred breeding operation on 400 acres, which they own and lease near the Black Hills in Newell, S.D., called Horse Creek Thoroughbreds. But then, as with so many other businesses, their farm tanked when the market took a downturn in 2008.  

With discretionary money all dried-up like the Arizona desert, Dale and Dorothy needed to come up with a new business plan and repurpose themselves for a second career in the Thoroughbred business, a business they know and love.

With a few yearlings left on their ranch Dale’s hope of selling them for a profit was no longer viable and he knew he would have to sell them at a loss because keeping them was too costly.

While watching TVG and HRTV it was then that Dale came up with the family’s second career – trading his yearlings for slow horses off the racetrack. As Dale put it, “Trade a yearling that has some hope for their gelding that had no hope.”

Dale would look for slow horses, who would appear to have a quiet demeanor with little hope as racehorses, and repurpose them.

The concept took off immediately and Dale and Dorothy turned their breeding operation into a rehabilitation and retraining center, which they named “Great Geldings: Gate To Greatness.” At any time, the staff of two – Dale and Dorothy – may handle anywhere from 20-25 horses. Their third staffer, Heather Benson, is their marketing and office manager who lives a mere seven hours from the ranch. She is always on call. 

The Great Geldings program spends anywhere from a few months to more than a year transitioning from track life to ranch life. A great deal of hours of rehab and training go into each horse and while the horse is transitioning, Dale develops them for their best suited career, be that ranch riding, rodeo, dressage, eventing or polo.

When I questioned Dale on what happens to a horse who doesn’t make the cut he responded without hesitation, “Never ran into one [repurpose horse] that could not do the job. Some may take a little longer, but never found one that could never have a second career.”

Dale attributes his earlier years as a Thoroughbred trainer to helping him repurpose racehorses and said, “Maybe I can help these horses and the people get going again.”

“A lot of these horses, the first person they see on the race track are the vet, who comes up to them and pats them on the neck and gives them a shot,” he said. “These horses are angry and sour. I have to get past that before I can work with them. Heck, they got their ears pinned back at me every time I come up to them. I don’t want to ride a horse that pins his ears at me.”

With that Dale said he turns out the horses every day and every day he’ll walk up to them maybe once or twice during the day and pat them and scratch them on their butt and then turn away and leave.

“You’ve got to get them happy before you can cure their attitude and ulcers,” said Dale. “I don’t ask them to do anything they don’t want to do. I just let them get used to me. I’ll keep them with other horses that won’t pick on them or bully them and I eliminate all the stress I possibly can and try to make it a good and clean environment for them until we can go back and ride them. We have to have a balance. I don’t want to start off with a horse that already hates me.”

Now a 10-year-old gelding, Automobile, a Pennsylvania-bred by Two Punch out of Beautiful Stranger, was racing as a 9-year-old horse at Arapahoe Park, in Aurora, Colo., when he found his way to Dale and into the trainer’s heart. Dale was taking another horse off the track from a trainer when they threw in “Auto” as a “bonus,” if you will. Automobile started 21 times, amassing four wins and earning a career total of $16,143.00. He ran his last race at Arapahoe Park on July 21, 2013.

Dale describes Automobile the day he came to the ranch: “He walked off the van squalling and walking on his hind-legs. That was absolutely gorgeous to look at with fuzzy ears.” 

With a chuckle, Dale start to tell me that when Dorothy took a look at Automobile as he walked off the van she said to him, “Dale, he’s got fuzzy ears and I’ve never seen a horse with fuzzy ears who wasn’t nice and friendly.”

And right she was. However, Dale knew it would be hard to convince anyone to use Auto as a stud with his poor race record so with that in mind Auto was gelded.

Within a month of rehab, Auto adapted to his new home with ease and Dale roped a cow with Auto the first time he had ever ridden him. After riding him no more than five times, Dale, Dorothy and Heather took off to Baltimore to participate in the first-ever Retired Racehorse Track Program “RRTP” event at Pimlico last October. Before I could say “holy moly” for the umpteenth time to Dale, he did tell me that when he says he rode Auto only five times before heading to Pimlico, one ride can go as long as 40 miles.

“By the time we get home his head is down and his waking like an old saddle horse,” Dale said.

Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron rode Auto in the demonstration program, “Ride like a Jockey,” and, later, they saddled Auto into a western saddle where Chris rode him in the team sorting competition. Dale exclaimed, “Auto did not dance or jig. He has a wonderful mind”

Dale believes the RRTP is the best program that has come along for retired racehorses that he’s found.  

Upon their return to South Dakota from Pimlico, an early blizzard had struck their area. Dale saddled up Auto and together they went out in the white blizzard helping their neighbors find lost cattle and get them back home. As Dale likes to say, Auto has become his “go-to horse.” And that Dale likes to describe himself as, “just an old cowboy that likes Thoroughbreds.”

To learn more about Great Geldings and Horse Creek Thoroughbreds visit www.gatetogreat.com.