About the Nonprofit
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Thoroughbred Athletes, Inc. is a 501 c-3 nonprofit organization located in Guthrie Oklahoma dedicated to the rehabilitation, retraining and rehoming of off-track Thoroughbreds while giving community youth a chance to develop new skills. Their mission began in an effort to help retired racehorses find new careers and prevent them from situations that may lead to neglect, starvation, or slaughter. TAI is the first all thoroughbred retraining facility in the state of Oklahoma. In addition to being the first in the state to be fully accredited by both TAA and GFAS. Founded in 2011 by Lynn Sullivan, we make it our mission to be a stepping stone for these "Thoroughbred Athletes" providing them the rehab and training to transition them to second careers in their new homes. Whether these athletes are responsibly retired, sound or injured, rescued from dangerous situations; we will take them in.
The goal of Thoroughbred Athletes, Inc is to teach retired racehorses a new skill set that will afford them a second career beyond racing. Because of their athleticism, thoroughbred horses excel at a variety of sport horse disciplines including dressage, hunter, jumper, combined training, polo, fox hunting and pleasure riding. Many former thoroughbred racehorses have successfully competed at the Olympic level in dressage, jumping and combined training. Some thoroughbreds are found on police forces and in crowd control while many thoroughbreds serve as family horses. At Thoroughbred Athletes, Inc. we help these noble animals into that second career beyond the racetrack.
While helping these animals is our priority and mission, we like to stay involved in our community. We have helped at-risk youth, provided community service for nonviolent offenses, have the local 4H coming out twice a week to learn more about ex-racehorses and their care all the while providing our volunteer and work to ride programs for both youth and adults.
“Our Mission is the Horses; Our Community makes it Happen.”
What We Do:
We work to rehabilitate, retrain and rehome off the track Thoroughbreds while bringing awareness to the next step of a former racehorse's life and their potential. We take in responsibly retired race horses, relinquished OTTBs (off the track Thoroughbreds) with no questions asked and even rescue from dangerous situations such as kill pens, feedlots and auctions. We want to bring awareness to the world that there is a need for programs like ours and what happens post-racing life to these "Thoroughbred Athletes." Without programs like ours some of these horses would end up discarded and in potentially dangerous situations. It’s why we’re here, to prevent that from happening. The soundness of an incoming horse does not matter to us: whether healthy and just needing down time and retraining before moving on into their loving new home or those that are injured and need surgery(s), recovery and rehabilitation; we will take them. We make sure to provide a foundation as a stepping stone for these horses to transition from racehorse to personal career horse in well vetted homes.
How is this all possible? Through many accreditations, grants and donations from organizations and individuals that too help spread awareness, we are able to financially provide the care these horses need while asking minimal adoption fees. In reality those adoption fees don't even cover two months of expenses for a single horse’s overall care and needs. Our mission is the horses; community makes it happen and money is not and never will be our focus.
It isn't just donations that make the care for these horses possible; it's the people. We provide a volunteer program for both youth and adults where we teach them how to properly care and handle this special breed of horse. We teach life skills, hard work ethic through some very demanding non glamorous chores and provide the only good type of addiction: Horses. It takes a village and we have one full of dedicated volunteers and continue to expand our volunteer family through every application.
“We think we rescue them; the truth is they rescue us.”