Stickney and Cicero, Ill., are neighboring suburbs located west of Chicago. Stickney is the home of Hawthorne Race Course. Cicero is home to J. Sterling Morton High School District 201, serving approximately 8,000 students from Cicero and surrounding communities.
Near the beginning of the Hawthorne section is the Golden Corral parking lot. From this vantage point, you can clearly see the horses on the track during training or racing. One morning while watching a training session from here, trainer Chris Block saw a group of Morton High School students gathered by the fence to watch the horses. An idea suddenly flashed in his mind: “We should put more of those students on the track.”
Last week, the Illinois Backstretch Charitable Foundation, the benevolent arm of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, in collaboration with Amplify Horse Racing and J. Sterling Morton High School District 201, did just that by hosting the Opening Ceremony. Morton Urban Equestrian Program—and it was a huge success. All I could think about on the way home to Kentucky was that this was one of the most impactful outreach programs I’ve been a part of since starting Amplify.
Chris is chairman of ITHA, led by chief executive David McCaffrey. David and IBCF program coordinator George Moreno contacted me in February seeking program development assistance from Amplify and we decided to tackle the project together. The ITHA team presented the idea of organizing students at Hawthorne to the school district. They jumped at the opportunity to connect their students with horses and proposed creating a four-day summer enrichment program. From there, ITHA and Amplify work on the schedule and curriculum of topics and activities, and the district handles student registration.
We anticipated a relatively small group the first year, and the final attendance included five middle and high school girls and their science teacher, Kyle Boyd. Students’ minimal previous riding experience ranges from never touching a horse to leading a horse. During the four-day Morton Urban Horse Program, students arrived at the ITHA office on a minibus and, for three hours, experienced first-hand the day-to-day operations of a racetrack while learning public works practices. industry, equestrianism and applied science. They have the opportunity to groom one horse, feed dozens of racehorses lots of mints, ride around the track on a tractor, observe the horse’s respiratory tract, and even go on (for most of them) ) their first time. -used to ride horses. On the third day, a student told us that she had fun and wished the program had lasted longer.
Instrumental to the success of this program is the genuine commitment and enthusiasm of the ITHA team. David and George play an active role in planning and communication with the school district as well as day-to-day teaching. Horsemen liaison Mena Perez even shares her very special lead horse, Bandit, as our mascot and tutor for everything from grooming lessons to barn shows testing and riding. Chris Block and his assistant Martin Martinez openly shared their stables as teaching space, and trained and cared for approximately 35 horses. Chris serves as an educator every day and invites students to participate in every step of training, from understanding the role of nutrition and the feedroom to hearing the importance of hoof care while watching a horse being groomed. trimming and moulting. His horses also received the majority of said mint.
To wrap up day four, we asked students to complete a feedback survey. Nearly all of them conveyed that just being in the presence of horses and touching them was the most special part of the entire experience. They also reflect deeply on how much they have learned about racing, veterinary medicine and the excellent care they receive from the horses. Four of the five students expressed interest in becoming veterinarians, and one student in particular asked how she could pursue a job at the racetrack in the near future. Most notable was the handwritten thank you card that the students handed over before boarding the bus to leave the track for the last time. One message read: “Thank you all for caring about us and giving us all these wonderful lessons. It was a wonderful, fun, unforgettable experience that we will never forget.”
There are some moments in this show that will stay with me for a long time: watching all five students groom Bandit and gently pet him as he chews grass; the laughter as they entered the starting gate like starting assistants; the beaming smiles as they stepped off the big John Deere tractor after circling the track; The smiles were even brighter as they sat high on Bandit’s back.
Students in the Morton Urban Horse Program groom horses at Hawthorne Race Course
The ITHA team and I went into this week understanding that this program was a pilot and would be a learning experience for all of us. We came out of it knowing that we positively impacted the five teenage girls who attended. Without this program, those students may never have had the opportunity to actually be around horses. But as a result, they experienced moments they will never forget. Racetracks have enormous potential to become centers of learning in the communities in which they reside. In many urban and inner-city areas, racetracks are the only place for miles where people can go to see and possibly touch a horse. That is certainly what Hawthorne was for Cicero.
At Amplify, our vision is to leverage the thoroughbred industry to connect youth, families, students and educators with opportunities to learn about and interact with horses. But to make those connections, we must create opportunities. ITHA has developed an unforgettable opportunity through the Morton Urban Horse Program and I am excited for all the students who will learn about horses and experience the excitement of racing as the program grows.
