Second Chancee

The Wall Street Journal magazine, WSJ, (sorry no link--subscription only) has a nice piece on the Second Chance program run by the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation. In this program, retired racehorses are paired up with prison inmates who, in learning to care for the horses, become certified to be elite grooms.

The article focuses on the James River Correctional facility in Virginia, but the program operates at eight correctional facilities around the country including Walkill Correctional facility in upstate New York, where it all started. Bill Heller tells the wonderful story of this initial prisoner-thoroughbred partnership in his book, After the Finish Line.

The results at all the programs seem to be the same. Everyone wins, big time. "It's a win-win situation: a win for the prison system and a win for retired racehorses with no place to go," says Howard Nolan, a state senator from Albany County who dreamed up the idea in 1982.

"The horses are one of the bet rehab tools I've seen. After a month, the men are completely attached to the animals," Brandy Nixon, prison counselor at the James River facility told WSJ. "Even the biggest, broadest, strongest prisoner stands in the shadow of a thoroughbred."

The Second Chance program is endowed by the late Paul Mellon, who owned the Kentucky derby winner Sea Hero. But they are always looking for donations, admits Director Diana Pikulski. "Taking donors to the prisons and seeing the success of rehabbing the horses and prisoners is probably our most effective fund raising tool," she says.

As for the prisoners, well they learn the responsibility and selflessness that comes from taking care of another living being, and in the process, they learn a trade. Inmate Tamio Holmes, who has 22 months left on a six-year drug sentence, says he hopes to start a work-release program, perhaps at a racetrack when his sentence nears its end. There is also the possibility of employment in a private stable facility.

"I've gone to prison a few times," he admits. "But it's the horses that are going to keep me out of here for good."