Thoroughbred Breeders Look Out for an Old Friend

When Patricia and Richard Lenihan sold a horse they bred along with a partner at a 1998 2-year-old sale at Timonium for $80,000, they never forgot about the colt who would be named Holmdel. They watched with delight as he finished third in the

Share
Favorite
Close

No account yet? Register

ADVERTISEMENT

When Patricia and Richard Lenihan sold a horse they bred along with a partner at a 1998 2-year-old sale at Timonium for $80,000, they never forgot about the colt who would be named Holmdel. They watched with delight as he finished third in the 1998 Rushing Man Stakes at the Meadowlands and won allowance races at Aqueduct and Monmouth as his earnings approached the $200,000 mark. They also looked on with concern as he slipped into the claiming ranks, was claimed away from Carpeninto, and eventually wound up running for $2,500 in Pennsylvania.


Who knew what was going to happen to Holmdel? The Lenihans feared the worst. Many people in their situation would have taken the position that Holmdel’s future is someone else’s problem. Not the Lenihans.


“I tried to keep track of him over the years and I was sad to see him running in a $2,500 claimer at Penn National in October of 2004,” Patricia Lenihan said. “I told my husband that this horse had more than earned his retirement and that because we bred him we should see to it that he got a good home. Personally, I think horses should not be allowed to run for claiming prices that are less than 5 percent of their career earnings, but Holmdel was running for a tag that was less than 1 percent of his lifetime earnings ($291,576). How much money does a horse have to earn to be treated like he actually has some value?”


The Lenihans got busy. They called Penn National and reached the assistant of trainer Jose Martinez. A sale was made and Holmdel was back where he began, safe and sound with the Lenihans. He was turned over to the TRF and, after a stay at the Clarksburg, N.J. satellite facility run by Phil Klein, he was transferred to the TRF farm at the Blackburn Correctional Facility in Lexington, Ky

Create a free account with TheHorse.com to view this content.

TheHorse.com is home to thousands of free articles about horse health care. In order to access some of our exclusive free content, you must be signed into TheHorse.com.

Start your free account today!

Already have an account?
and continue reading.

Share

Written by:

Product and information releases by various organizations and companies.

Related Articles

Stay on top of the most recent Horse Health news with

FREE weekly newsletters from TheHorse.com

Sponsored Content

Weekly Poll

sponsored by:

How much time do you usually spend grooming your horse?
440 votes · 440 answers

Readers’ Most Popular

Sign In

Don’t have an account? Register for a FREE account here.

Need to update your account?

You need to be logged in to fill out this form

Create a free account with TheHorse.com!