Boys' Haven was recently featured in the Sports section of the New York Times. The transcript of the article is reprinted here with permission.



By MICKEY MEECE
Published: May 4, 2008


LOUISVILLE, Ky. — On April 26, opening day at Churchill Downs, the team from Boys’ Haven leapt from their seats, screaming encouragement as their horse in the fifth race, Stanton, swung wide on the second turn and gained the lead approaching the stretch.




Neglected Youth Turn to Horse Racing Boys’ Haven, a nonprofit home for neglected and abused youth in the Louisville area, races thoroughbreds as part of an equine job-training program that is not even a year old. Finding gainful employment for young men and women who are aging out of foster care is the stated goal, but on this day, and for this 1 minute 46 seconds, all anyone cared about was winning.



As horses stormed past, Stanton’s trainer, Jay Wilkinson, a retired police officer who runs the Boys’ Haven equine program, strained against the rail screaming hoarsely to the jockey, Fernando de la Cruz: “Turn him loose. Turn him loose. Turn him loose.”



Dirt flew on a fast track on this clear, pleasant spring day as the horses ate up the mile and a sixteenth. Cruz was jammed in tight quarters and could not angle toward the rail, could not turn Stanton loose. Stanton finished second by a neck to Q Mac’s Phone.



“If he could’ve gotten to the rail, he’d been all right,” Wilkinson said, his face still flushed with excitement and tinged with disappointment. His assistant trainer, Jason Matthews, slammed his program against the railing in frustration. The other three members of the team took off wordlessly to meet the horse and jockey.



To anyone watching, these horsemen were seasoned professionals. Yet the team has been together since just last July, when Boys’ Haven, founded by the Rev. James C. Maloney in the 1940s, acquired its first racehorse.



That they were racing at all is a tribute to Wilkinson, said Jim Grote, the director for development at Boys’ Haven, as he came up with the idea. In six months, Wilkinson not only had the equine program up and running, working 90 straight days with his first class to build stables on campus, but he and his team are also making noise at the track.



John Asher, the vice president for communications at Churchill Downs, said: “What’s really surprising is the fact they are seeing success on the racetrack. Well, it’s not that surprising. Jay Wilkinson has been around racing all his life. The key is they haven’t aimed too high.”



Stanton is a big part of the success. In eight starts this year, Stanton, a 6-year-old bay gelding that the team affectionately calls White Nose, has been in the money nearly every race, with three wins, three seconds and one show.



His near win on April 26 turned out to be the highlight of the weekend. (“He got beat by a head bob,” Matthews said, “by a nose — not even a full nose, a nostril.”)



Boys’ Haven had two horses running last Sunday, but one was a late scratch and the other finished last after leading for three-quarters of a mile.



“That’s a day at the races,” Wilkinson, 51, said ruefully last Monday morning at the Churchill Downs training facility. “That’s the way it goes. They have to learn to deal with disappointment,” he added, pointing to the youth working in the stalls.



Wilkinson, an easygoing taskmaster, was all business with two more races to prepare for during the opening week. He showed one young man how to give the practice rider, Roger Delk, a leg up. Later, he took him to the track to explain the poles marking distances and the way to time a practice run.



As the sparrows chirped and the seven horses sighed and suffered the constant attention of the groomers, the Boys’ Haven stables at Churchill Downs came alive. Experienced hands like Shannon Bolin, 23, and Jeremiah Lentz, 19, cleaned stalls, added new hay and water, hot-walked horses, making sure to yell “Hold back” and “Going in” as they entered and left the area so there were no collisions.



In a quiet moment, Lentz, a ward of the state since he was 2, exchanged pleasantries with the horses. Kissin Bobbie Vicar is his favorite.



“He just listens to me,” Lentz said. “This one at the end — he likes me a little bit.”



He walked over to another horse, stroked her nose and scratched her teeth. “She’s mean,” he said, even though she serenely enjoyed his attention.



Wilkinson said: “You’d be surprised by how some of these kids like the ornery horses. They tend to drift towards the horse that are more like them.” The horses, he added, have a therapeutic effect on the youth. “Most of the kids are really angry, just due to abuse. This is one of the few times a day they are relaxed. Horses aren’t judgmental.”



Matthews, 33, and Jim Elbert, 54, a case manager at the equine program, dug in beside the young men to wrap legs and prepare the horses for their paces. Boys’ Haven pays for the horses’ care and shares the purses with the owners.



The nonstop activity, which begins each day at 6:30 a.m., slows by 11, and the youth are driven home. Back at Boys’ Haven, other students in the six-month training program take care of the six horses stabled there that are used for training and equine therapy for at-risk youth.



At week’s end, Team Boys’ Haven bowed aside gracefully as the big-money horses, trainers and jockeys got set for the 134th running of the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. But there is no time to rest, with plenty more races ahead.



“We think of the racing as a motivational factor for the kids to hang in there and want to stay with the program,” said Vernon C. Rickert Jr., the executive director of Boys’ Haven, which has been serving girls as well for several years.



Still, job training is the main emphasis, Rickert said, “We think it’s a great fit for the kinds of kids we have here who often have a lot of barriers and restraints for getting on in other kinds of work.”