Remember Little Cliff?
 

http://thoroughbredtimes.com/nationa...slaughter.aspx


Little Cliff rescued from slaughter



by Ed DeRosa

Little Cliff, one of two horses owner Robert LaPenta named after the late turf writer and chartcaller Cliff Guilliams, was rescued from slaughter on April 7.

Christy Sheidy, co-founder of Another Chance 4 Horses rescue in Bernville, Pennsylvania, discovered the five-year-old Gulch gelding in a direct-to-kill pen in New Holland, Pennsylvania. He had last raced in a $10,000 claiming race on March 1 at Philadelphia Park, finishing seventh of nine and earning $170 for owner LA Buzz Stable. Trainer Ramon Preciado had claimed the horse from Jimmy Moran Jr. for $10,000 on January 13.

Sheidy ran the gelding’s tattoo and had Diana Baker, formerly of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, pull a race record, which is when the connection to LaPenta and Racing Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito appeared. Zito’s wife, Kim, is involved in horse rescue efforts as well.

“Mr. LaPenta and [Zito] sent a very generous check to Christy that more than covered [Little Cliff’s] expenses,” Baker said. “We couldn’t have asked for a better or more generous response than what we received.”

In a cruel twist of fate, Moran and Guilliams both died within a week of Little Cliff’s rescue but not before Nick Zito had a chance to tell Guilliams that one of his equine namesakes had been rescued.

“The Cliff’s Edge and Little Cliff were both named after [Guilliams],” Kim Zito said. “Nick had dinner with [Guilliams] just recently and told him what had happened to Little Cliff. [Guilliams] got very emotional and very upset.”

LaPenta purchased Little Cliff for $250,000 at the 2004 Keeneland September yearling sale and bought him back on a bid of $350,000 at the 2005 Fasig-Tipton Calder sale of selected two-year-olds in training.

Little Cliff finished sixth behind eventual Grade 1 winners and Central Kentucky stallions Political Force and Flashy Bull in his second career start before winning his next two races by a combined 6 1/4 lengths to close out his two-year-old season. At three, he finished third in both the Leonard Richards (G3) and Sir Barton Stakes. He won three of 27 starts and earned $202,762.

Although Little Cliff had changed owners four times throughout his life before being rescued, one thing that followed him from Kentucky to New York to Florida to Pennsylvania were his Jockey Club papers, papers that Kim Zito had affixed with a white sticker that says, “If this horse needs a home when he retires, please call.”

“The tragic part of this story is that Little Cliff had this sticker on his papers, and that breaks my heart because it proves that there are people in this industry who don’t give a [darn],” Kim Zito said.

Ed DeRosa is news editor of Thoroughbred Times

glad they rescued him. would like to see the owners who put him there, put in for slaughter.. Heck i'll even start the bidding @ $20.00. :D

The writer of the story happens to be one of my really good friends- I will speak to him on anyone's behalf who would be interested in taking care of him. Sh*t like this makes me SICK. At one time he was a pretty decent horse.

Wow.. what the f...?

How could someone be so cold blooded. To know the horse had a home and they could be bothered to place a call.

Instant Karma - do your stuff

I know that slaughter houses are there for obvious reasons and a topic that will always be debatable, however when on the papers it states "“If this horse needs a home when he retires, please call.”.... How can that horse end up there? Who the hell is this "La Buzz stable"? He needs to be made to take a trip to a slaughter house so he can see what becomes of his careless decisions. Thank God Christy was there to find him!. F@!&ing Jerk! :mad:

If anyone gets ahold of this guys name(s) e-mail or cell phone please post it ;)

Wow. Indeed pretty brutal to ignore that. Glad that was published in an industry magazine for all to see.

their names should be published and at the least black balled from the industry.

trainer Ramon Preciado is based at Philadelphia Park maybe these people can tell us how to get in touch with them.

Track Superintendent David Ziegler dziegler@philadelphiapark.com

Director - Racing/Racing Secretary Sal Sinatra ssinatra@philadelphiapark.com

Director - Public Relations Keith Jones kjones@philadelphiapark.com

Thank you for the information. I'll send them an e-mail and go from there.

O.k... Just sent out an e-mail this morning to "ssinatra"... Doubt I'll hear back, but will let ya'll know if and when I do.

Wow! I actually got a reply as well as a name and address. They did'nt have a phone # (:mad: ) but here is the information for anyone interested in it.

La Buzz Stable

c/o Harry Robert Levin

2167 Fox Hound Chase

Marietta , Georgia 30062

I'll do a little "investigating" and see if I can come up with a # ;)

If you are going to stalk him, why not just do it via mail?

Stalk?!! Who said anything about "stalking" anyone? Why do you have his e-mail addy? lol :p

Send it to Ed DeRosa ... maybe La Buzz would like the chance to comment publically

I would think that Ed would have the information already, but I'll shoot him off an e-mail just n case.. It would be interesting to hear Mr. Levin's side. Perhaps he had no idea that the horse ended up there.. Never know :rolleyes:

(770) 640-2895

http://www.whitepages.com/search/Rev...caltime=survey

O.k.. I e-mailed Ed and asked him if he intended on getting Mr. Levin's story. Doubt it and doubt if we hear anymore about it really.

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/nat...fs-rescue.aspx

Previous owner responds to Little Cliff’s rescue


Writing on behalf of LA Buzz, of which I am a partner, I would like to present to the readership of the Thoroughbred Times the facts as we know them to be concerning the time between Little Cliff’s last race, his subsequent rescue from a direct-to-kill pen and the furor that has helped create amongst those following this story.

Up until the time that the first article was published online in mid April (click here to read the story), my partner and I believed that Little Cliff had been taken to a farm. Little Cliff had earned second money of $3,200 in his prior race for us, but got injured in the subsequent race and had to be vanned off the racetrack after the finish of his race.

After the trainer, Ramon Preciado, confirmed that Little Cliff would never race again, my partner contacted the general manager of the farm where he was bred to inquire if we could retire him there. Unfortunately, they were unable to assist. Thereupon, the trainer told us he would see to it that Little Cliff would get a good home, and indeed told us that he had a contact that had a local farm where we could visit him.

We had only good experiences with Ramon to that point, and had no reason to question his judgment or sincerity. The horse was released to Ramon, as our agent, solely to be retired, and we received no compensation, nor gave him any consent to receive any himself. What happened to him from the time he left the track to when he was found by the rescue people remains unknown to us, despite our many efforts to find out.

After Little Cliff left the track, Ramon told us about a sticker that was in with his foal papers. Upon inspection of the papers, we discovered a half-inch-square white paste-on sticker with ReRun’s phone number. Though we knew that Nick Zito had trained Little Cliff for the majority of his career, we had no idea of the extent of the involvement Kim Zito had with horse rescue, and had no way of knowing that she wanted to be contacted.

Partly because of what happened with Little Cliff, and partly because it was already in its formative stage already, the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association has begun an initiative to provide trainers with a place … to retire horses no longer able to race and in need of a home. Hopefully, the project will be successful in obtaining adequate financing and optimal results for the horse population at Philadelphia Park, so that what Little Cliff had to face does not happen again. LA Buzz is doing what it can to help.

LA Buzz indeed appreciates the efforts made by Another Chance For Horses on behalf of Little Cliff and the many other horses they have saved, and the efforts of all other horse rescue organizations. We also strongly condemn all horse slaughter and across the border horse transport for slaughter.

Contributions or assistance in providing homes should contact Turning For Home, in care of PTHA, P.O. Box 300, Bensalem, PA. 19020 or contact Barbara Luna of the HBPA office at Philadelphia Park

Respectfully submitted,

Robert Levin & Sheila Austrach
LA Buzz

Thanks for bringing this to light, unfortunately this sort of thing will always happen. Sorry I just don't see anyway it won't. You know if it can happen to a great horse like Exceller, it can happen to any horse.

Roman philosopher Lucretius said, "What is food to one, is to others bitter poison."

Unfortunate for all involved.. Glad to see that Ed DeRosa pursued the story and cleared up what appeared to be an un-just situation. Now we just need to hear from the pin-head Ramon...