A place for equine de-stressing

 

Anna Hollander, owner of Swedish Hill Farm and Spa in Malta, N.Y., walks the retired racehorse Principal Dancer to the paddock on a fall day, accompanied by her dogs. Joan K. Lentini photo

 

By STACEY MORRIS
Contributing writer

MALTA, N.Y.

Anna Hollander’s first waking thought is almost invariably of horses.

She currently houses seven of them on her 15-acre farm a few miles south of downtown Saratoga Springs. The former jockey has been caring for retired racehorses at Swedish Hill Farm for the past eight years since she founded the nonprofit group After The Races NY.

Hollander, the organization’s president, rolls up her sleeves just like any of the volunteers, rising between 4 and 5 a.m. and heading to the barn for the morning feeding. Then, Hollander and the horses — their exact numbers fluctuate over time — are treated to what’s usually a picture-perfect sunrise over the paddocks before exercising and training begin.

After The Races NY transitions thoroughbreds from horseracing to other, less intense equestrian endeavors. The organization is registered with the state and accredited and vetted by the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance and Thoroughbred Charities of America.

And Hollander, a horse-lover since childhood, is adamant that horses at the end of their racing careers still have lots of potential for happy, productive years. Some will go on to be show horses for jumping and dressage competitions, while others will work giving trail rides. Some simply become companions to horse lovers.

But these transformations don’t just happen. The proper transition is necessary, and that’s where Hollander’s program comes in.

Although Hollander has a handful of volunteers helping with the many chores involved in the day-to-day care of the horses, the bulk of the work falls to her — not that she minds.

“The work is physically tiring, but unbelievably rewarding,” Hollander said. “It’s wonderful to watch them blossom from these high-strung racehorses into who they really are. It’s an integration process.”

Hollander’s healing agenda for her charges includes plenty of outdoor playtime in the pastures, where the horses can experience nature while getting to know the other horses and forming friendships with them. It’s a complete turnabout from their previous lives, which included lots of confinement in stalls.

“It’s fascinating to watch their changes,” Hollander said. “Racing trains them to run as fast as possible. We don’t want that; we re-teach our horses how to run.”

Once the horses begin to calm down and feel a sense of ease in their environment, Hollander and the volunteers teach them the basics of dressage, jumping and trail riding to discern which discipline might be a good fit.

“Horses want to be doing something,” she explained. “They get bored just standing around a paddock. They want to have a job and please their trainer. When I ask the horses to go over jumps, they happily do it.”

 

 

‘Horse heaven’
Because horses are highly sensitive animals, Hollander said she carefully vets the volunteers who work with them.

“I always say, especially with retraining, horses respond to calm and confident people,” she explained. “You have to let the horse know you believe in them. If you show confidence, they have confidence.”

She added that there’s no set time increment for transitioning a racehorse.
“Every one is different; I watch them and see what they need,” she said. “Some need a month, some need a few days, and some need several months. It’s an individual process, and the horses will ‘tell you’ when they’re ready.”

Hollander learns of potential candidates for adoption through her local and nationwide network of equestrian contacts.

Roger Horgan, a former jockey who has known Hollander since both rode at Belmont together, serves as the organization’s vice president and also has volunteered at the farm since it opened in 2016.

“It’s horse heaven, and Anna’s great at transitioning them,” he said. “She’s extremely compassionate and never turns them outdoors in bad weather. It’s fans in the barns during summer and wooly blankets in winter.”

Horgan, a native of County Cork, Ireland, spends his summers working at Saratoga Race Course and his spare time helping the nonprofit with everything from mending fences to feeding horses and mowing the grass.

“Without the right transition, a lot of these horses would just end up as lawn ornaments,” Horgan said. “You’ve got to put them in the right environment.”

Vasilka Bukov, a lifelong rider who owns a horse farm in the Westchester County town of Bedford, adopted a pair of horses from After The Races NY five years ago.

“I adopted two horses because I wanted them to have companionship,” Bukov explained. “They’re wonderful horses, having gone from racing to being phenomenal jumpers. They also love trail riding.

“Horses get beat up pretty bad when racing, because they’re overworked and not themselves when it’s over,” Bukov added. “Anna is so good with them and pampers them. … You can see it in their eyes how content they are. If I ever adopt more horses, it will be from Anna.”

A life-altering accident
Born in Sweden, Hollander grew up on a 1,000-acre farm and began riding horses as a child, eventually competing in jumping and dressage events. She attended college in Flyinge, the site of a national equestrian center in southern Sweden, where she learned skills such as how to be a veterinary technician and care for injuries. Her college also happened to be next door to a thoroughbred training center.

“I was 102 pounds and the right weight for racing,” she recalled. “There was just something about it that thrilled me. … I’ve always liked speed.”

The budding jockey’s love of horseracing eventually landed her in Miami, where Hollander spent three years riding at the former Calder Race Course (later rebranded as Gulfstream Park West) before moving to the New York City area with her then-husband. It was during her tenure at Belmont that Hollander first visited the Saratoga Springs summer meets in the late 1980s.
“I absolutely loved Saratoga,” she recalled. “The beauty of it reminded me of Sweden.”

But in 2002, a career-ending accident changed the course of her life when her horse slipped in the mud in the middle of a rain-soaked race at Belmont.

“When I hit the ground, it fractured my pelvis, and I couldn’t move,” Hollander recalled. “And then a half-second later I was run over by the horse behind me.”

After she emerged from a monthlong coma, the rehabilitation process was alternately touch-and-go and grueling. Hollander credits the New York City-based surgeon Jay Yelon for putting her back together. Despite a fractured pelvis and ribs, significant damage to her spleen and pancreas, and the need for numerous blood transfusions, Hollander said she was determined to get back on a horse.

“It took two years to get my energy back, but eventually I recuperated,” she recalled.
The accident made the former jockey pause to re-evaluate her life, however. Newly divorced and with her sons in college, she made the decision to relocate to Saratoga Springs. Almost immediately, Hollander’s close friend, Diane Nelson, also a jockey, presented her with a former racehorse as a gift.

“Diane was afraid I wasn’t coming back to the horse world after what I’d been through,” Hollander said. “I named him Dr. Yelon after the surgeon who saved me, and he went on to be an amazing event horse.”

 

A horse, then a farm
Hollander’s nurturing bond with her retired racehorse planted a seed, and when she learned that trainer Dennis Brida was selling his horse farm, she knew it would be a fit.

“He told me his wife wanted me to be the farm’s new owner so the horse tradition would continue,” she recalled. “They didn’t want the property redeveloped.”

She took ownership of the farm in 2016 and shortly thereafter founded her nonprofit aimed at rehabilitating racehorses for a second chapter. Her work is made easier by the largesse of her racing-world contacts.

“Owners and trainers will call me and say, ‘Will you please take our horses?’” Hollander explained, adding that the retired racehorses are donated to the volunteer-operated organization.
The nonprofit’s work is supported by donations, fund-raising efforts, and voluntary contributions by adoptees.

“We raise enough money to take care of feed, hay, blacksmithing, veterinary visits, … everything needed to train the horses,” Hollander said.

In addition to being trained for a second career, the horses also are used for therapeutic purposes.

“We have cancer patients come, as well as children with autism,” Hollander said. “They don’t ride, they just spend quiet time with the horses. Horses are such sensitive animals -- they feel energy and immediately sense people’s needs.”

Prior to her riding accident, Hollander had attended massage school in New York City with the idea of ensuring a post-racing livelihood.

“I wanted something to fall back on, and I like the idea of healing — whether it’s horses or people,” she said.

Now, when she’s not busy with her horses, she can be found administering massages and facials to a loyal following of clients in a cozy spa, complete with infrared sauna, that she created on the lower level of her home.

“I feel blessed to be doing two things I really love,” she said. “The massage area is near the barn, so I can still pay close attention to the horses. Before I moved to Saratoga, I had a vision of living here. Having the farm, horses, nonprofit and the spa is a dream come true — I feel it was meant to be.”

 

Visit www.aftertheracesny.com for more information about Hollander’s nonprofit project to retrain former racehorses and www.swedishhillfarmspa.com for information about her spa service.