Page 43 - November 2015

Above: Reid giving his 2-year- old daughter Noelle a ride on Dodger’s Big Ace, the horse he got for his 16th birthday
Center: Reid uses a handmade and painted “gut blanket”
by Groom Elite National Coordinator Christine Miller, to explain the uniqueness of the equine digestive system to a class.
Right: Reid at age six on
his dad’s field trial horse Star,
who taught him about pressure and release and who made him the horseman he is today.
with flaxen mane and tail: the Brown Dodger son Dodger’s Big Ace. “He was 18 months old and green broke,” Reid says. “I finished him off and from then on, for 16 years, he was my horse and my companion. We had a local drill team in Baton Rouge, the Highland Riders, and Ace and I were one of the lead pairs.”
In his freshman year at LSU, Reid’s request for new cleats and a glove to try out for the baseball team was met by an ultimatum from his dad: choose baseball or horses. Choosing baseball would mean selling his cattle and
the half dozen horses he used for breeding — including Ace.
“I made the decision to stay with horses,” Reid says. Although for years he suspected his dad didn’t think he could make the baseball team, he later discovered — around the time when his Louisiana Tech University program won its national award — that his dad believed he could’ve done more than make the team. “I heard him tell my kids, ‘He could’ve played pro ball if he’d wanted to and he chose horses. And look where he is now.’”
Groom Elite’s Beginnings
Around 2000, Reid visited the farm of Susan O’Hara to teach bandaging techniques to a group, including track workers. “Susan asked me, ‘Now that I know what test a person has
to take to be a trainer, what test do they have
to take to be a groom?’ The answer then, as
it almost still is now, Reid says, was that they simply had to show up at a stable gate at 5 a.m. and say they were looking for work. To most trainers, a warm body was better than no body.
“Sue put together a proposal for a grooms’ class that the Texas Horseman’s Partnership funded, and convinced Dr. Householder to compile a course that would be academically respected. I wrote the bandaging chapter, Doug wrote the conformation and behavior chapters, a vet wrote the veterinary chapter, a farrier wrote the hoof care chapter, and so on. I edited it to make
it appropriate for racing and taught it for the first time at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie in 2001.”
The program spread to tracks across Texas, including Sam Houston Race Park and Retama Park. Trainers in Virginia and Minnesota jumped on the bandwagon, as did tracks in 15 other states.
In 2004, a trainer who’d seen Reid teach
at Colonial Downs in Virginia pursued the program for the South Carolina Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation’s (TRF) racehorse project at a prison in South Carolina. So in early 2005, Reid met with the future instructors at Wateree Correctional Facility in Rembert, South Carolina, close to the large two year old training areas of Camden and Aiken, South Carolina. Since then, Reid worked with James River TRF and the National TRF to expand
what’s now known as Second Chances Groom Elite to institutions in Virginia, Maryland, Illinois and Indiana.
This variety of programs and locations has created a need for more qualified instructors, so
in November 2015 the Elite Program offered
an equine instructor’s certification workshop in which nine new licensed instructors were certified.
Reid’s qualifications include not only his
vast wealth of knowledge, but also his ability to communicate that knowledge to others. “He’s a very affable individual,” says Jon Moss, executive director at the Iowa Horseman’s Benevolent
and Protective Association located at Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino where a Groom Elite class has been offered almost every year since 2003. Jon also acts as coordinator for the classes and fills in to teach when Reid or other track professionals can’t attend. “He’s a big guy, but an incredibly friendly and outgoing person who can connect with people and make them feel important. He ensures that students know there are no stupid questions.”
“He’s like a walking reference book,” adds Chris Rohrbach, who completed Groom Elite 101 and 201 and then took the Trainer’s Prep class. Chris went on to work with trainer Bill White for a year and claimed his first horse in April 2015. Since then, he’s won three of 11 races. “The Elite program is fantastic and has taught me a lot.”
SPEEDHORSE, November 2015 41