Teamwork keeps the gears in motion for Dr. Richard Bowman and Andrea Keacher.
In 1998, Bowman, a longtime track veterinarian at Canterbury Park, founded Bowman's Second Chance Thoroughbred Adoption to rehabilitate and rehome off-the-track Thoroughbreds.
"It started real small. Occasionally, guys asked me if I could find them a place to take a horse," Bowman said. "Sometimes I could find them a spot and sometimes I had to take them out to my place and keep them there for a while until we could find them a spot."
Throughout his rescue operation, Bowman has taken in "somewhere in the neighborhood" of 600 horses, including 48 during one of his "biggest years."
Based in western North Dakota, Bowman would take horses from the track and turn them out to roam over his 4,000-acre property, which had a dual purpose as a cattle ranch.
"I had the ranch before I started the horse rescue, and then we just devoted part of the ranch to the horses," Bowman said.
The question of how to fund the herd loomed, and Bowman said at first most of the weight fell on his own pockets. However, as demand increased, resources became more readily available.
"Usually I had about 100 horses there at a time that were in transition between getting ready to go and hanging out," Bowman said. "We had some horses that stayed there as long as 12 to 15 years. As the numbers increased, there was more demand for funding, of course, to help fund the project, and what we didn't get in funds from donations and grants from the track and things like that, we made up ourselves."
After encountering funding issues early on, Bowman said that's changed, and that tracks like Canterbury have been instrumental in allowing the rescue to flourish.
"There's much more funding available now than there used to be. The track has developed sources of revenue for rehoming these horses," he said. "I can't say enough about the racetrack's involvement in this, they've been super with helping collect funds.
"They actually collect a fee each time a horse starts. Each owner puts a few bucks in and that money eventually goes to rehoming these horses. It's been a collaborative effort by the racetrack and the horsemen, the HBPA, they've been real good about helping to support it. It's just a program that's worked out well."
Yet Bowman, 73, would need to find additional support, because he made the decision this year to step away from directly managing the rescue and to focus on retirement. He would need a successor.
Fortunately, he did not have to look farther than a relationship he developed many years ago, when Andrea Keacher adopted several horses from his rescue.
"My friend and I drove up to his farm in North Dakota, which is literally in the middle of nowhere," Keacher said. "We picked out a couple Thoroughbreds, brought them back to the college, and trained them. It sparked my fire again and I just fell in love all over. I thought this is something I need to be doing."
A lifelong horse enthusiast, Keacher, 37, is a riding instructor in Anoka, Minn., at Boulder Pointe Equestrian and Event Center, where she juggles riding, training, and running a summer camp along with the rescue.
From an early age, Keacher says she has enjoyed the process of retraining racehorses, especially for new careers in eventing.
"My first horse was a Quarter Horse, super amazing, perfect, and I decided I wanted a challenge," Keacher said. "So I bought a 2-year-old off the track and he was crazy, but I was able, through patience and understanding, to train him to be an amazing eventer who went on to compete nationally. That originally fueled my fire. I was like 'Wow, these horses who are cast off, they can really be something amazing.'"
With a fully developed passion for working with Thoroughbreds, Keacher did not hesitate when Bowman asked her earlier this year if she would be ready to take command of the rescue.
"She's got a facility that's available and she's got the space to take these horses," Bowman said. "She also trains children, they come there and spend the summer there riding the horses, and a lot of them end up buying the horses.
"It's just a win-win situation for her, and plus it gave an opportunity for us to move these horses down the road and still keep them intact. It just worked out well; the transition is pretty well complete. We had some money that was left over and it all went to Andrea to help get her started."
As well as the transition has gone, it has not come without growing pains, as the majority of horses have shipped in only within the past few months.
"We've been just getting them all settled in here and getting used to them," Keacher said. "Some of them have a lot of issues, so it takes a lot of patience and a lot of time and managing on my part to have schedules for all of them. It is a lot different here than in North Dakota because it is significantly more expensive to keep them here in this state with the hay and grain prices and everything else. To keep one horse here is a lot more money than at Dr. Bowman's."
"The big challenge is finding the right people to adopt the horse. The other part is the amount of money that goes into keeping every horse. We're constantly going to be looking for different grants and ways that people can donate to support the horses. A lot of people want to help. They just don't know how or just need a nudge in one direction in order to participate."
Despite the adjustment challenges Keacher has faced, she has never lost sight of how important Bowman's Second Chance is, especially when it provides her an opportunity to connect with her riders.
"It's about telling their story. Some of (the horses) come to us very frightened, abused, neglected, and so many of the kids here, even if they don't want to admit it, have issues too," Keacher said. "So I'm able to relate to them by saying, 'Hey, look, this horse is scared too, it's OK, look how this horse can transform.' They can kind of relate to something else which is just very healing for both and human."
So, as Bowman closes a chapter of his rescue, another one begins with Keacher.
"I'm kind of sad to be out of it, but I am still on the board of directors of her new startup and I will continue it for a while until I'm fully retired," Bowman said.
"She was 18 when she first came. She would take these horses and retrain them and find permanent homes for them. It was just a perfect fit when she said she would be willing to continue the operation. It was just kind of a match made in heaven."
