Following a second-place finish to Mobil in the Plate Trial Stakes, Rock Again was a legitimate Plate player and in any other year, he might have won it. Unfortunately, he was from the same foal crop as the great Wando, a cruising winner of the Plate and the eventual Triple Crown winner.
Rock Again emerged from the Plate with a hairline fracture in a foreleg and missed a year of racing. In fact, he had only a scattered number of races over the next three years before he was officially retired in 2006.
As with a lot of retired Stronach racehorses, Rock Again joined Stacie Clark at the owner’s popular Adena Springs Retirement Program at the Aurora farm and began the process of being re-trained into a riding horse.
It didn’t take him long to become a favourite again.
Once he was deemed ready to find a new home, Rock Again was moved to Bilby Ranch in Uxbridge, ON owned by Sean Smullen, a trainer for Adena, and his wife Diane, a riding coach. “I spent a month with him to see how he would react to quiet settings and being ridden,” said Diane Smullen, who has her own Adena retiree Lake Skimmer, who teaches her students to ride. “I fell love with him.”
When a friend of the Smullen’s, Leslie Timson, came by looking for a horse for her 15-year-old daughter Cassandra, Rock Again was recommended. “I was a little apprehensive at first I guess,” said Timson, an accomplished rider. “Sometimes the reputation is that racehorses can be hot headed off the track and my daughter was just 15. But she rode him with Diane one day and fell in love with him, she was very comfortable with him.”
Cassandra, who has been riding since a young girl, and her mother slowly began to re-train Rock Again as a barrel racer. “He actually picked it up fairly quickly. We took it slow, let him learn at his own pace and he has been phenomenal,” said Leslie Timson.
That was three years ago and now Cassandra, 18, competes with Rock Again in competitions and rodeos and the pair are inseparable. Last fall, the Timsons went on a road trip with Rock Again to Ohio for an American Quarter Horse Association show. “He likes the lights and the people,” said Timson. “I think he is used to that from the track, he always stands so proud.”
The Timson family love Rock Again so much they recently added another Adena retiree, Smart Bullet, a son of Belmont Stakes winner Touch Gold, to their family. “We didn’t pay much for [the horses],” said Timson. “They are most interested in making sure he has a forever home and has a great life. It’s a great program because they take their time with the horses and seek out the best new owners for them.”
Rock Again seems to have found his forever home.
