LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 10, 2012) – Bluegrass Community and Technical College’s North American Racing Academy (BCTC-NARA) is working with the Kentucky Horseshoeing School and the New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program to expose its students to vocational avenues within the horse racing and breeding industries.
The Kentucky Horseshoeing School (KHS) Director of Education Mitch Taylor will provide BCTC-NARA’s 20 horses in training with all their shoeing needs with the help of KHS trainees.
“We love the idea of having our students join in the unique learning environment in the BCTC-NARA training barn,” Taylor said. “Mixing together these future horsemen, riders and horseshoers will allow them to learn from each other. This gives them a great hands-on learning experience in a real training environment under the proper supervision. It’s a win-win for everyone.”
The New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program is helping BCTC-NARA meet the growing demand for the retraining and placement of racehorses. Through New Vocations, BCTC-NARA has successfully placed two of its older horses into new homes: one as a dressage/pleasure horse and the other as a hunter/jumper prospect.
“BCTC-NARA has a great program in giving horses off the track a new job – teaching our future trainers and riders,” Anna Ford, Program Director for New Vocations said. “Of course, there comes a time when these wonderful NARA horses cannot continue to train and that’s where we come in. We’ve been very happy with their condition and soundness which has allowed us to find them new homes quickly.”
BCTC-NARA is also exploring additional course work and, perhaps an entire class, devoted to teaching the racehorse re-training techniques employed by New Vocations.
“We’ve gotten quite a bit of interest from some students about racehorse re-training in class,” said Remi Bellocq, Executive Director of Equine Programming for BCTC. “We very much look forward to using New Vocations and its retraining techniques as the model program they should emulate.”
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