By Susan Kayne
For Capital Region Independent Media
The stunning beauty of Liam will awaken your sense of awe. He is the equine doppelganger of the Italian supermodel Fabio.
Liam’s striking good looks, like Fabio’s, are embellished by long and luscious flowing locks of mane. His beautiful face is adorned with a wide white blaze captured between two flirtatious eyes. His glance will leave you wonderstruck.
Standing 17-hands tall and weighing 1,200 pounds, Liam is stately and strong. His legs are perfectly conformed and dressed in three white socks and one anklet. He is a modern incarnation of Elizabeth Taylor’s famed steed The Pie, whom she rode to victory in the movie “National Velvet.”
Liam is young. He was born at Woodford Thoroughbreds in Florida on March 3, 2016, under the ownership of John and Susan Sykes. Liam is now fully grown. The skeletal structure of the horse isn’t entirely developed until the age of six. Emotional maturity follows a much longer arc.
As a yearling, Liam sold at auction for $70,000. His sire (father), He’s Had Enough earned nearly $500,000, and his dam (mother) and granddam (maternal grandmother) each earned over $180,000. His winning lineage coupled with his impeccable conformation made him an outstanding prospect to excel at racing.
From the age of two until four, Liam raced 17 times at seven different tracks. He won three races and earned $127,517 for multiple owners, trainers and jockeys. When the wear and tear of racing deteriorated the joints in Liam’s youthful legs, he was sent to New Vocations, a racing industry-funded aftercare facility.
Most racehorses, like Liam, retire from racing between the ages of three and five. The causation may be forced by irreparable injury, the career may be intentionally ended to prepare the horse for breeding, or the horse may simply be too slow and thus training fees become a liability instead of an investment in potential prize money winnings.
Aftercare facilities help to protect unwanted racing and breeding stock from falling prey to the slaughter pipeline. Three or four months into Liam’s stay at New Vocations, he became slated for euthanasia. When Liam’s last owner and trainer learned of his impending demise, they reached out to Unbridled. They hadn’t the means to support him, but they couldn’t bear the thought of his premature death.
Liam arrived at Unbridled on a frigid February morning in 2021. Tall, leggy and stunningly gorgeous, he melted the heart at “Hello!” But for a few lame steps here and there, you’d never know the damage living inside his splendid exterior.
Liam’s X-rays revealed irreversible osteoarthritis. He was not born with this degenerative joint disease. Its cause is the repetitive pounding of limbs while training and competing in races. There’s no cure, but the symptoms can be managed with surgery, systemic arthrotherapy and joint supplements such as Adequan, Legend, and Cosequin.
To offer Liam an active, comfortable and enjoyable quality of life, he would need surgery to remove the microfractures that irritated his fetlock joint — a $5,000 procedure and hospitalization.
For Unbridled, this meant soliciting donations to pay for his surgery. Had Liam’s injuries not been career ending, and if having surgery meant he could return to the races, his former racing owners would likely have paid for the procedure. Liam did all that was asked of him, and he was broken in the process.
The medical team at Rhinebeck Equine led by Gus Abuja, DVM, performed a successful surgery on Liam. Post-surgery, Liam required six weeks of confinement to his stall, and a daily bandage change to protect the sutured area. During this time, Liam received drug-free plasma injections of concentrated anti-inflammatory proteins to improve joint mobility and support healing. Horses who know the freedom of a field and the euphoria of running are not happy to be confined!
Liam is sensible, and complied with the constrained routine of rehabilitation that would eventually liberate him.
Today, Liam enjoys frolicking free of pain. He has a very good prognosis for long-term comfort as a pleasure-riding horse.
Liam’s story illustrates the importance of a proactive approach to safeguard equine soundness. Had imaging technology been utilized to monitor the condition of Liam’s joints, an ethical decision to stop racing him could have been made long before the damage to his joints became irreversible and limited his capabilities for the next two decades of his one and only life.
Susan Kayne operates the horse rescue organization Unbridled Thoroughbred Foundation, on the border of Albany County and Greenville.
