TRRAC - Thoroughbred Retirement, Rehabilitation, and Careers

Founder Nina Bradley competes at the 2017 Thoroughbred Makeover with Facundo, who placed ninth in Competitive Trail in a class of nearly 70 horses. Facundo also cross-competed in other disciplines. Credit: TRRAC
  • Services

    Sanctuary, Rehabilitation, Retraining/Adoption

  • Location

    Chester County, Pennsylvania

  • Founded

    2017

  • Average Number of Thoroughbreds

    65

TRRAC, also officially known as Thoroughbred Retirement, Rehabilitation and Careers, was founded by multi-generational horsewoman Nina M. Bradley in 2017 as a non-profit, but the program has been in existence and rehoming horses since 2013. The program is backed and molded by board members who have decades and generational experience with Thoroughbreds within the breeding, racing, and showing industries. TRRAC is located in picturesque Chester County, PA. The program offers safe sanctuary, rehabilitation, second-career training, and the facilitation of adoptions for off-track Thoroughbreds.

Horses at TRRAC receive medical support, supplementation, rehabilitative care, and second-career training to facilitate the best care possible for all the horses that come into the program. The program offers specialized and professional rehabilitation, as well as professional training in multiple disciplines. Horses in the program are thoroughly evaluated for soundness, suitability for a second career, and disposition, which includes riding assessments and professional training under saddle. TRRAC offers multi-discipline options, which includes professional training, from trail and obstacles to three-day eventing, to everything in between, backed by the program’s professional trainers that includes training Thoroughbred racehorses as well as actively competing in different disciplines.

The program believes in expressing not only the athletic ability of all Thoroughbreds but also their ability to be versatile family and pleasure mounts, no matter how they performed in their racing careers. They believe in properly restarting retired racehorses in new careers that suit them to ensure the perfect match with an adopter.

TRRAC houses horses at two different facilities, including those in permanent sanctuary, under rehabilitative care, retired breeding stallions, as well as horses actively training and showing in new careers. Each facility serves its own purpose for the program’s horses, with one housing horses in sanctuary and rehabilitation and the other for horses in training and ready for adoption. The program has helped facilitate the safe retirement and placement of over 600 horses. The program is backed by the promise of a safety net for each horse, which may return to the program at any time, for any reason, if they are no longer able to stay with their adopters. Each horse is individually tracked, with the adopter providing monthly updates to ensure they are being properly cared for and thriving in their adoptive homes.

In 2022, TRRAC initiated the Thoroughbred Recreational Program (TRP), which focuses on taking horses who are disadvantaged in being placed in show careers and instead helps retrain them as leisure mounts and therapy horses for amateur riders. The program also offers training clinics, informational seminars, and competitive/judged trail obstacles for both horses under saddle as well as in hand. The program extends to include para-equestrians who enjoy the breed by matching them with a TRP-trained Thoroughbred to show in classes, clinics, and obstacle challenges.

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