7 am and the dragons are restless, the moment they hear the feed cart begin to roll the barn erupts in a chorus of nickers, whinny's and feed pans being flailed in anticipation of their morning grain. These were the mornings that I become accustomed to grooming some of the country's top equine athletes at the Elite thoroughbred farm Scatter Creek Training Center LLC in Tenino, WA.
While I've had extensive experience retraining horses off the track; becoming a groom for these budding champions (or baby dragon's as I like to call them), gave me a glimpse of the passion, dedication and high standard for care that is invested into the thoroughbred race horses bred with high hopes of glory in the winners circle.
During my time at Scatter Creek I really learned what it meant to throw down and git er done. The trainer Jeff Vens was no less than a legend in my book. He was firm but patient with the horses and myself while learning to tack up no less than 12-24 horses every morning. While I was experienced with polo wraps, there was a bit of a learning curve going from dressage tack to race gear, prepping the ponies as they anxiously awaited they're time in the lime light. Seeing Jeff throw himself on sassy pant's youngsters every morning without fail, patiently work through all the horses in the barn, using the afternoons to show client horses and blowing the barn aisle to keep it spic and span was absolutely awe inspiring.
I was thankful for the opportunity to watch these horses go from the mild mannered babies finding their legs, to fiery youngsters being thoughtfully started under saddle. It was a fascinating cycle watching them get turned out to mature, before being polished up and then shipped off to top race trainers around the country.
The horses here could want for nothing. I loved the programs attention to detail, not only in feed, training, and facilities but also to the general efficiency of the entire team. Every morning after feeding the training horses, one of us would be out on the quad feeding the broodmares and horses on turn out while surveying their 200 acres checking for down fences and any area's that could prove unsafe for their racing investments. I had the pleasure of returning to massage some of their horses after leaving to pursue equine structural integration much to the enthusiasm of GQ on of their retired show horses.
Before lunch the horse's temperatures were taken, stalls were a stripped and cleaned, water and grain buckets scrubbed, hay topped off and bedded deep, all in a timely manner of about 7ish minutes a piece. All this was made possible thanks to the thoughtful layout of the barn. With the arena and hot walker areas central with mirror image barn aisles each with its own wash rack, feed and shavings storage and manure area, everything you needed to complete the job was a few steps away.
While the stalls were being cleaned horses were being tacked, and rotated out to the hot walker or being ridden. The farm maintenance master spent the afternoon's laser leveling the indoor arena, moving hay, and picking paddocks while the grooms tended to mane's, tails, handling babies, farrier and vet appointments, and endless laundry from the 24ish sets of leg wraps that were used 6 days a week.
One of the coolest experiences I had was watching the construction of an extra wing of the barn to accomodate the installation of the latest farm investment, the Equine Aquaciser. It was such an educational experience learning not only how to introduce young horses to such an intimidating machine but also seeing how quickly the horses adapted to their new activity, and seeing first hand the benefits of water facilitated therapies for rehabilitation and resistance training.
I'm so thankful for the lessons learned during my time at Scatter Creek training center, and also for the experience to work in the proximity of such successful busienss people. Shawn and Todd Hanson were inspiring to watch work, overseeing their whole thoroughbred operation while running a full time business in commercial construction. I am so thankful to the Hansons for allowing me the pleasure of working with them and answering my many questions that came up along the way. Best of luck to their team in the 2022 racing season!
