Ivory Lady, one of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation year 2000 retirees will visit Keeneland’s Breakfast with the Works on Toyota Bluegrass Day, April 15, 2000. Handling Ivory Lady for the benefit of breakfast guests will be her Blackburn Correctional Facility caretakers.

Ivory Lady’s visit will give guests at breakfast a chance to pet a Thoroughbred racehorse. Also on display will be TRF’s renowned program for retirement and rehabilitation of Thoroughbreds no longer useful for the racing industry while offering inmates in TRF’s prison program a chance to reclaim their lives. With the generous help of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and Kentucky’s racing and breeding industry, TRF has established a program at Lexington’s Blackburn Correctional Facility where up to 70 horses at a time can rest and be rehabilitated for private adoption.

We chose Ivory Lady for this event because she is so calm and gentle. She will be a great horse for kids to get close to,” said Melissa Klick, TRF’s Horse Placement Coordinator based in Lexington. Ivory Lady is an 18-year-old mare by Sir Izor out of Native Dancer mare Easy Virtue. She raced six times at Belmont and Saratoga, trained by the late Woody Stephens, and broke her maiden in 1985. TRF obtained her last January at a sale when she didn’t bring more money than the slaughterhouse would give for her.

“Not only is she a sweet horse, but a horse that represents so much of what TRF is about,” commented Monique Koehler, Chairman and Founder of TRF. “Ivory Lady is well bred and had plenty of bold black type on her catalog page but she had trouble carrying foals and was no longer useful to someone. She was going to fall through the cracks if we didn’t save her