Oct 14, 2026 · 36 min · 12 segments
Grace Barry, the director and a co-producer on the documentary, Our Dark Horse joins us for an interview ahead of her sold out World Premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival. . An intimate vérité…
The issue of thoroughbred aftercare raises a deeper ethical question.
Why should aftercare need to exist as a charitable safety net for horses who are already owned? Thoroughbreds do not bring themselves into existence.
Human beings make the decision to breed them, buy them, train them, raise them, claim them, sell them, breed from them, and profit from their athletic ability and reproductive bodies.
Yet when their economic utility ends, the very horse who was an asset becomes a liability.
But when the income stops and the invoices continue, too often the imperative is no longer stewardship.
It is to offload the horse, offload the expense, and offload responsibility for the 20 or more years of life that may remain.
The financial obligation is pushed onto somebody else.
The daily labor is pushed onto someone else.
The veterinary decisions, the aging body, the injuries, the feed bills, the farrier bills, the worry, the caregiving, and ultimately the emotional labor of carrying that horse safely through the remainder of his life are pushed onto someone else.
And too often that someone else is a non-profit organization, a rescuer, a sanctuary, an adopter, or the donating public.
If not, the thoroughbred is auctioned off by the pound in the slaughter pipeline.
The horse did not suddenly become ownerless.
Someone decided they no longer wanted the responsibility of owning him.
A thoroughbred may leave racing at only four or five years old and live well into his or her twenties or thirties.
Those decades are not an afterthought to the horse's useful life.
They are the horse's life.
The same horse whose speed was valuable at 3 is still present at 13.
The mare whose foals generated income is still present when her breeding career ends.
There was only ever one horse.
This is why the central question cannot simply be, how do we provide more aftercare? It also must be, when people deliberately breed, own, use, and profit from a horse, where does their responsibility for that life end? At Unbridled Sanctuary, our answer is that responsibility should encompass the whole natural life of the horse.
Unbridled Sanctuary began precisely at that point of transition.
After Thoroughbred, Stallwart member ran his final race in December 2003, his owner, Sandy Goldfarb, asked Susan Cain to help him transition safely into life beyond racing.
Goldfarb supported the founding of Unbridled Thoroughbred Foundation in 2004 with Stallwart as its first horse.
Over the years, the organization expanded its mission to protect equines of all breeds and became unbridled sanctuary.
Unbridled Sanctuary does not accept funding from the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance.
The issue of thoroughbred aftercare raises a deeper ethical question.
Why should aftercare need to exist as a charitable safety net for horses who are already owned? Thoroughbreds do not bring themselves into existence.
Human beings make the decision to breed them, buy them, train them, raise them, claim them, sell them, breed from them, and profit from their athletic ability and reproductive bodies.
Yet when their economic utility ends, the very horse who was an asset becomes a liability.
But when the income stops and the invoices continue, too often the imperative is no longer stewardship.
It is to offload the horse, offload the expense, and offload responsibility for the 20 or more years of life that may remain.
The financial obligation is pushed onto somebody else.
The daily labor is pushed onto someone else.
The veterinary decisions, the aging body, the injuries, the feed bills, the farrier bills, the worry, the caregiving, and ultimately the emotional labor of carrying that horse safely through the remainder of his life are pushed onto someone else.
And too often that someone else is a non-profit organization, a rescuer, a sanctuary, an adopter, or the donating public.
If not, the thoroughbred is auctioned off by the pound in the slaughter pipeline.
The horse did not suddenly become ownerless.
Someone decided they no longer wanted the responsibility of owning him.
A thoroughbred may leave racing at only four or five years old and live well into his or her twenties or thirties.
Those decades are not an afterthought to the horse's useful life.
They are the horse's life.
The same horse whose speed was valuable at 3 is still present at 13.
The mare whose foals generated income is still present when her breeding career ends.
There was only ever one horse.
This is why the central question cannot simply be, how do we provide more aftercare? It also must be, when people deliberately breed, own, use, and profit from a horse, where does their responsibility for that life end? At Unbridled Sanctuary, our answer is that responsibility should encompass the whole natural life of the horse.
Unbridled Sanctuary began precisely at that point of transition.
After Thoroughbred, Stallwart member ran his final race in December 2003, his owner, Sandy Goldfarb, asked Susan Cain to help him transition safely into life beyond racing.
Goldfarb supported the founding of Unbridled Thoroughbred Foundation in 2004 with Stallwart as its first horse.
Over the years, the organization expanded its mission to protect equines of all breeds and became unbridled sanctuary.
Unbridled Sanctuary does not accept funding from the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance.
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