Alicia Wincze Hughes on horse racing

On Thursday, it was announced that a  group of industry stakeholders were establishing the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, an organization designed to serve as both the accrediting body for aftercare facilities that care for Thoroughbreds following the conclusion of their racing careers and a fundraising body to support these approved facilities.

Funded initially by seed money from Breeders’ Cup, Ltd., The Jockey Club, and Keeneland Association, the TAA is comprised of owners, trainers, breeders, racetracks, jockeys, aftercare professionals and other industry groups.

Later on Thursday, I was able to catch up with TAA board president Jack Wolf – who also heads up the Starlight Racing ownership group that campaigns Grade III Holy Bull Stakes winner Algorithms.  Here are some of the added details Wolf was kind enough to provide about how the TAA initially came about and how the accreditation process will take place.

Q: How long has this concept been in the works?

A: “You know I’m on the board of the TCA and….we had been talking about it for some time that there needs to be, within the industry, some way to have mandatory funding where each group designates a relatively small percentage of revenue or profit to be devoted to taking care of these horses.  I volunteered to try and get the group together, which we did on Belmont weekend so this thing has been going on since the Belmont. But I think we’ve made some progress as far as the accreditation and now the funding . With the backing of the Breeders’ Cup and others behind us it’s going to make it easier to get this thing done. There are a number of people on our working board who have been instrumental to get these three outfits on board and to their credit, they see the need for it. And they’re jumping behind it.”
Q: Did you find in general this was a concept many groups were receptive to being a part of?

A: “Yeah. It’s just a matter of how much for each organization but everyone has been behind us. It’s not like the industry is saying ‘Call us next year’ or anything like that. So from our standpoint, it’s just a matter of how we practically pull this all together.”

Q: How will the  accreditation process work? What are some standards that will be set and repercussions?

A: “We have the accreditation committee that has been working on this since we started and actually Mike Ziegler (Executive Director of the NTRA Safety and Integrity Alliance) and Dan Rosenberg, those guys have been working on it. And the committee, which Mike is heading up now has been working on it. This is a work in progress, it’s not finalized, but the idea is to have the policies in place for site inspections. It is sort of a catch 22 in that you don’t want to make it too stringent and you don’t want to be too relaxed. But that will be in place and the farms who don’t qualify…they won’t get the funds.”