What Happens to a Racehorse After the Track? This Event Is Building the Answer.
Virginia Tech’s Equine Medical Center and the Retired Racehorse Project just launched something the thoroughbred aftercare world has needed for a while.
Floo Powder used to run on dirt. Now he runs barrels.
The 14-year-old Pennsylvania-bred gelding, a former racehorse turned National Barrel Horse Association champion walked into the Jane and Stephen Hale Indoor Arena at Virginia Tech’s Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg, Virginia recently, and demonstrated something with more clarity than any presentation could: a thoroughbred’s racing history is a starting point for evaluation, not a ceiling on what comes next.
His appearance was the centerpiece of the inaugural Thoroughbred Wellness Expo, co-hosted by the Equine Medical Center and the Retired Racehorse Project, a national nonprofit dedicated to facilitating placement of ex-racehorses in second careers. The event brought together equine professionals, riders, and horse enthusiasts for a full day of education and live demonstrations covering soundness evaluation, upper airway conditions, and farriery — all aimed at giving prospective owners the clinical foundation to make confident decisions about adopting an off-the-track thoroughbred.
It is exactly the kind of event the thoroughbred aftercare community has needed more of.
Starting with the intake
The morning session was led by Jeff Berk, VMD, MRCVS, a past president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners whose career has been built around the thoroughbred. He currently collaborates with New Vocations, the largest thoroughbred aftercare facility in North America — which means his intake protocols are not theoretical. They are the product of evaluating horses that have actually come off the track, in the condition they actually arrive in, with the histories they actually carry.
Berk walked attendees through his intake protocol for aftercare facilities, paired with imaging analysis of the soft tissue and orthopedic conditions ex-racehorses commonly present with as they transition to second careers. The combination of protocol overview and real imaging data gave the session a clinical weight that matched the venue.
Floo Powder provided the live demonstration, handled by Layne Shaffer, who transitioned him from racing to barrel competition. His 1D/2D championship record in NBHA events made him a fitting illustration of Berk’s core argument: that a thorough evaluation of a horse’s racing history and physical status is the beginning of a placement conversation, not the end of one.
Reading the airway
The afternoon session took a different approach. Elsa Ludwig, a large animal surgeon at the Equine Medical Center, started with the horse rather than the classroom.
Before any lecture content, Ludwig performed a live over-the-ground dynamic endoscopy demonstration with Tuscaloosa, a 2022 dark bay gelding by Candy Ride being prepared for a hunter jumper career. Watching the airway in real time gave attendees direct visual context for what followed: a practical breakdown of common upper airway conditions in ex-racehorses, their diagnosis, treatment options, and what each condition means for a horse’s future under saddle.
Upper airway conditions are among the more misunderstood areas in off-the-track thoroughbred evaluation. Prospective owners encounter terms like dorsal displacement of the soft palate, laryngeal hemiplegia, and dynamic pharyngeal collapse without necessarily having the framework to evaluate what any of them mean for a horse’s suitability for a particular second career. Ludwig’s session addressed that directly, and the live endoscopy gave it an immediacy that classroom slides cannot replicate.
Farriery as the foundation
Rounding out the day was Amy Sidwar-Seaver, a certified farrier and equine sports massage therapist and graduate of the Forging Ahead Internship Program, whose expertise spans sport horses and laminitis.
Farriery is the piece of the off-the-track thoroughbred puzzle that tends to get less attention than the orthopedic and airway evaluations — and Sidwar-Seaver’s inclusion in the program reflects something the aftercare community increasingly recognizes: soundness in the thoroughbred starts at the hoof, and the quality of farriery during and after transition is as critical to a successful second career as any veterinary workup. Horses that have been shod for racing have specific foot conformation considerations that a new owner and their farrier need to understand and actively manage.
Why this event matters for equine practitioners
The Thoroughbred Wellness Expo is not primarily aimed at veterinarians — it is aimed at the riders, prospective owners, and aftercare workers who will be making adoption decisions and managing these horses in their second careers. But equine practitioners are central to what it is trying to accomplish.
The clinical credibility of the event — an academic equine medical center, a past AAEP president, a large animal surgeon performing live endoscopy — is doing specific work. It is signaling to the equestrian community that the evaluation of off-the-track thoroughbreds deserves the same rigor as any pre-purchase exam, and that the tools to do that evaluation well exist and are accessible.
For practitioners who see OTTBs in their patient population, the Retired Racehorse Project’s educational focus is aligned with good clinical outcomes. An owner who understands what a dynamic endoscopy finding means, or why a particular hoof conformation requires specific farriery attention, is a more informed partner in managing that horse’s health. That is better for the horse and less time spent on client education from scratch.
Both organizations plan to co-host the Thoroughbred Wellness Expo annually.
The Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center is operated by the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. For more information on equine specialty services, visit emc.vetmed.vt.edu. To learn more about adopting an off-the-track thoroughbred, visit retiredracehorseproject.org.
