FRIENDS OF FERDINAND INDIANA INC

Every horse adopted from Friends of Ferdinand has a place in our organization for the rest of its life, and can return to the organization at any time, for any reason. We strive to place to right horse in the right home with the right rider, the first time. Our goal is to accomplish a year-over-year rate of successful adoptions of greater than 97 %. Meeting this metric demonstrates our core competencies of evaluating horses for their temperament and ideal rider, evaluating our adopters for their horsemanship, skill level in the saddle, quality of the adopters support system to address eventual issues of a green horse, and financial stability to provide optimal care.

We evaluate horses for their temperament and ideal rider, evaluate our adopters for their horsemanship, skill level in the saddle, quality of the adopters support system to address eventual issues of a green horse, and financial stability to provide optimal care.

Friends of Ferdinand believes that the transitional period from the racetrack to a second career is a crucial time to assess and heal injuries, determine aptitude and test temperaments for these highly intelligent and sensitive animals. Getting this step wrong often results in animals who are mentally unable to be ridden by amateur riders, physically unable to meet expectations of their second career owners and become again at-risk for abusive training and handling, neglect, abandonment and slaughter. Our experience over the past decade is that only 1 out every 4 potential adopters has the skill set as an amateur rider, the basic horse care knowledge and the professional support to successfully transition a racehorse into a riding horse in another discipline. This highlights how easily the fate of a newly retired racehorse is determined by an ill-equipped rider/owner, and why matching horses and adopters is key to their long-term safety and security.

Friends of Ferdinand has engaged the expertise of Lori Miller, an eventing coach and trainer based in Ohio. Lori's love of TBs started at a young age, as she rode the TBs right off the track that came through her trainer's barn. She has maintained her passion for the breed throughout her professional career, restarting numerous horses every year while competing on her own former race horses in the sport of eventing. Lori maintains Greenstone Stables, a boarding and training facility near Dayton Ohio which is home to FFI's re-training facility for our English riding horses. The majority of our horses come to Lori's barn for temperament and under-saddle evaluation, re-training and then matching adopter and horse. Lori's philosophies are centered around matching horse and rider skills so that they can progress as a team and partnership. Lori is a graduate from The University of Findlay in Equine Business Management and has a juris doctorate from The University of Dayton.
In 2019 we expanded our network to include a Western trainer in central Indiana and an additional eventing trainer. In 2022 we added an additional trainer that works with horses in other disciplines and focuses on groundwork and horsemanship. This provides us better opportunities to showcase our horses in an area that we feel best suits them.

Friends of Ferdinand has accomplished a governance structure, policies and procedures that always puts the horses first. Our adopters recognize the time, effort and consideration that goes into each horse, and the thoughtfulness by which we match horses and rider for long-term success. Looking forward, we look to grow our reputation, notoriety and leadership in thoroughbred aftercare. When the landscape of getting horses off the track changed due to an increased demand, FFI looked around and saw that broodmares were in need of an outlet. After starting the Broodmare Bunch in 2022 other organizations followed our lead and also began accepting broodmares. In 2023 The RRP (Retired Racehorse Project) went so far as to develop classes and awards for newly retired broodmares that are adopted from organizations. We are proud to be a part of a community that is supported pensioned broodmares.