Greener pastures...

"Retire from work, but not from life." - M.K. Soni

After several days of mulling over the future of Kickin n Screamin we have decided that the time is right to retire her and move her onto the next phase of  life. She has made 28 starts since we claimed her in October of 2007 with 3 wins, 7 seconds and 3 thirds. Kickin made starts at 8 different tracks; Tampa Bay Downs, Arlington Park, Turfway Park, Atlantic City, Kentucky Downs, Keeneland, Churchill Downs and Philadelphia Park.

However, recently she has started to lose her desire to compete, despite not having any real physical issues which is typically the reason why older horses start to fade. Kickin is far from the ideal 'off the track' prospect but her soundness and size are two things that she has going for her and continuing on with may eventually lead to issues that could compromise her future. Of course this decision would have been delayed had she been in better racing form but honestly she was never all that talented to begin with and at anything less than her best isn't competitive even at the bottom. Add that to the fact that she isn't close to paying for her upkeep and the picture becomes much more clear. We can retire her to Philadelphia Park's  "Turning for Home" retirement program (http://www.patha.org/turning-for-home.html) where there is a waiting list of people waiting to adopt a sound horse.

Kickin n Screamin was never a great horse or even a good horse but she always tried hard and willingly gave what she had. She was Dee Tee's first winner and has given us more than two and a half years of campaigning. At seven years old there isn't any improvement in form coming and we owe it to her to make sure she finds a good home and a nice post-track life.