In the summer of 2023, it was announced that Golden Gate Fields, the major remaining Thoroughbred track in Northern California, would be closing. The Bay Area track staged its final card this June. With that closure pending, Thoroughbred breeder Dr. Dorothee Kieckhefer was keeping an eye on a filly she had co-bred in California, Big Fame. After being well-beaten in two outings on the Southern California circuit, the filly had scored both her career wins in claiming company at Golden Gate, as well as running on the fair circuit at Pleasanton, Sacramento, and Santa Rosa. With in-state opportunities at Big Fame’s level potentially dwindling, Kieckhefer feared the filly would slip through the cracks into an unsavory situation and stepped in to re-acquire her. That move set Big Fame on the path to a second career as a sport horse. Big Fame is off to a promising start in her new profession after being crowned Thoroughbred Makeover champion as selected by a panel of judges at the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover and National Symposium in October at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Ky. While there are certainly horses like Big Fame who will exit the struggling Northern California circuit in search of a second career, the infrastructure for Thoroughbred aftercare in California hasn’t been overly stressed at this moment by track closures, said Lucinda Lovitt, executive director for the California Retirement Management Account. Lovitt noted that there is a shrinking Thoroughbred population overall and said horses who are competitive on the Northern California circuit are often sold by their owners to compete successfully elsewhere, or else the owner finds a way to shift to a different circuit themselves. “I think the reality is California racing is shrinking,” Lovitt said. “We have fewer racing dates, which means fewer opportunities to run for owners, and so, I think the reality is, we have a smaller market in California, period. “What that means for aftercare, in my opinion, it’s not a dire situation. . . . There’s not an inordinate number of horses needing to be retired this year as opposed to prior years.” Following the Dec. 18 program at Pleasanton, there was not expected to be racing in Northern California until the start of the Alameda County Fair in June. The state’s Thoroughbred circuit will be consolidated at Santa Anita in Southern California, with a meet from late December until June. Santa Anita is owned by 1/ST Racing – which also owned Golden Gate – and despite that track closure, Lovitt said it is a boon for the state’s aftercare efforts that the company is “very, very supportive” of the cause. Still, she cautioned that the long-term effects of fewer tracks and fewer racing dates could cause a struggle for funding – particularly for sanctuary facilities, which provide lifetime housing for Thoroughbreds who cannot be adopted out to second careers. There are nine Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance-accredited facilities in California, according to the organization’s website. Seven serve, wholly or in part, as retirement sanctuaries. “The concern is declining revenue from racing and decreased racing opportunities, then what does that mean for our charitable partners, because we get support from those races,” Lovitt said. “Our sanctuary facilities, by and large, depend on grants from the racing industry to survive.” While the state grapples with these long-term issues, Big Fame has become one of those horses who can fly the flag for California-breds in offtrack careers. Kieckhefer, a small breeder who lives in Arizona, leaned in to the California-bred program following the economic crash of 2008, as purse incentives in the state made it viable for her. Big Fame, by the late California stallion Mr. Big, is out of her unraced Arizona-bred mare Adopted Fame. Kieckhefer claimed or bought back several horses she had bred in the summer of 2023, including Big Fame, who finished her career with a record of 13-2-2-2 and earnings of $29,070. Kieckhefer, who has a dressage background, turned Big Fame over to a fellow Arizona equestrian, Angela Carmitchel of Taylermade Equestrian Services in Scottsdale. “From the very beginning, I thought she would just make a wonderful jumper or eventing horse,” Kieckhefer said at the Thoroughbred Makeover. “She just has the presence for the ring, and I think she has a lot of fun. All of the trainers that had her said that she has a wonderful work ethic, but she never really raced in the top levels – she’s much better served in this area.” The Thoroughbred Makeover retiring racehorse division is restricted to horses who had a race or published work within a recent time frame and who did not begin formal re-training for a second career before last December, putting them on a relatively level playing field. Horses competed across 10 disciplines, with the top five from preliminary rounds moving on to a finale to determine 10 individual winners. That group was then discussed by a panel of judges from each discipline to determine the overall champion. More than $100,000 in prize money was offered to top finishers across the preliminary and final rounds. Big Fame and Carmitchel, who bested more than 280 others, qualified for the finale in two disciplines, ultimately winning the eventing competition and finishing second in show jumping. “She has got such a great brain, very athletic, willing, and smart,” Carmitchel said. “She’s got the work ethic of a Thoroughbred.” Big Fame, now 5, earned a $10,000 check for being voted the overall champion, plus the $2,500 top-placed California-bred award, sponsored by the Georgia B. Ridder Foundation. Big Fame also earned prize money for the preliminary rounds of competition. The second-highest-placed California-bred in the state awards standings was Golden Image, an 8-year-old gelding by Eddington who was among the top finishers in show jumping behind Big Fame. The gelding, who raced as a homebred for John Ernst and Allegra Ernst, won 3 of 36 starts in a career that concluded in February 2023 at Santa Anita. The trainers of Big Fame, Golden Image, and other California-breds were eligible for grants from the California-based After the Finish Line to reimburse entry fees, stabling fees, and other Makeover expenses. Some Caan Job doing well at Grand Prix California-bred Some Caan Job, a 2017 Thoroughbred Makeover graduate, has spent the last several years climbing through the levels in dressage. The 11-year-old mare recently received recognition from The Jockey Club as the highest-scoring Thoroughbred competing at Grand Prix in the country at the U.S. Dressage Federation’s annual awards banquet in December and also ranked in the top 50 among all breeds nationally. Some Caan Job, by Square Eddie, was bred in California by Reddam Racing and put together a record of 15-1-4-2 with earnings of $56,656, concluding her racing career in September 2016 for owner and trainer Carl O’Callaghan. Now owned and trained by Jenny Spain of Virginia, the mare finished fourth in the dressage discipline at the 2017 Thoroughbred Makeover. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.