Women inmates find hope and skills caring for retired thoroughbreds. Watch videos of inmates telling their stories.

By Dave Joseph

For Viewfromtherail.com

There’s a single barn at the Lowell Correctional Institution; a single barn made from the wood of old Tartan Farm and the sweat of inmates.

It’s inside that barn where Tiffany Molina finds herself, staring past the stall of Breeders’ Cup participant Shake You Down and across rolling pastures here filled with retired thoroughbreds.

“Every woman wants to take care of something,” said Molina, serving time for grand theft robbery. “We don’t have our kids, we don’t have our families and we can’t take care of our husbands. So we have the horses who love us.”

Horses like Shake You Down, the multiple Grade I winner Val’s Prince, and popular Florida stakes winner Carterista are three of the more than 50 thoroughbreds who are cared for each day here just outside Ocala as part of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation’s (TRF) equine program. Inmates at eight correctional facilities across the U.S., are currently learning life and vocational skills while caring for more than 350 of the TRF’s 1,200 retired thoroughbreds.

Diane Gray, a native of Boston and former nursing student before being incarcerated for trafficking methamphetamine, said she was a little hesitant about joining the TRF program two years ago. “I’d never been around horses in my life,” she said. “But now I’m doing things I never thought I could before. It’s been wonderful for my own self-esteem.”

“I guess we’re kind of the same as some of the horses. We both had to be rescued.”

LEARNING BEHIND BARS

Only a two-lane country road just off I-75 separates the women’s prison at Lowell from the Marion Correctional Facility for men.

When the TRF program started here in 2001, it was the men who worked with the thoroughbreds. But as Lowell grew – it is currently the largest women’s prison in the U.S., with 3,500 beds and another 2,000 under construction – the program was transferred, making it the only equine program for women in the U.S.

“There’s so much to learn and a lot of work to be done,” said 24-year-old Brittani Bennett, serving 20 months on a drug-related charge.

Farm manager John Evans, a former trainer and Kentucky steward, says there are only 15-20 inmates enrolled in the program at one time. “There’s hundreds who try to get into the program,” Evans said. “Those who make it in get to walk out of that prison and it feels like they’re free.”

VIDEO: Farm Manager John Evans

But of the 3,500 women at Lowell, Evans said, only about 400 will meet the psychological criteria to attend class, which takes place daily in a small classroom inside the barn. Evans teaches the women how to groom, give shots, care for teeth and feet, and, for some, even ride.

“The amazing thing is how the inmates change when they get over here,” he added. “Once they get over here they get to nurture again. Most of the ones I have, 90 percent are mothers and they’re locked up in prison without their children. Those are life skills they get to re-establish. Once they get here they feel like they have some value again, and their self-esteem rises. It’s an amazing transition.”

CHANGING LIVES

Shannon Reiger, who’s served 10 ½ years for aggravated battery and assault on a police officer, wraps her arms around Shake Me Down, smiles and says; “These are my babies…these are my children.”

VIDEO: Shannon Reiger Interview

Reiger, who grew up around horses in Tampa, rides up to six horses each day in one of the pastures at the TRF facility so they can be adopted one day as pleasure, jumper and trail companions.

“The program has been wonderful and Mr. Evans is a great teacher,” said Reiger, who’s been with the TRF class for 18 months. “The program has really been therapeutic. It teaches us patience, hard work, love. These girls (inmates) can leave here and get a job and make good money with what they’ve learned here. If they take it serious it can change their lives.”

Gray is hoping for that. Like Reiger, she not only hopes to adopt two of the retired thoroughbreds here but to continue working with horses upon her release next year.

“One of the women who comes out to do the (horse’s) teeth works for the sheriff’s department that I actually got arrested (by),” she said. “She offered me work when I got out. It’s a new start.

“The TRF is a great program. I know my time in prison here would have been picking up garbage every day if it wasn’t for the TRF.”

Bennett, a native of Baltimore who describes herself as a “newbie” to the TRF program after only five weeks, is proud with how far she’s come. Standing comfortably in a paddock between two retired thoroughbreds, Bennett says she’s learning every day.

VIDEO: brittani Bennett

“I was never around horses before,” she said. “I mean, I might have rode at the carnival once, and we have the Preakness and I’ve been to the horse races, but now I’m picking up their feet and standing next to them.

“It’s wonderful and therapeutic. You learn to trust the horses and other people. We get out here, do our chores, help each other…I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

A retired 2-year-old thoroughbred, a son of Elusive Quality, runs past the fence line next to Bennett. She squints into the sun and looks across the rolling hill.

“This can change my life,” she says.