Former stars now just old folks on the farm

Wise Dan lets you lead him around and snap a photo. Declan’s Moon will stop goofing off with his mates long enough to take a carrot. Main Sequence lords over the paddock already made famous by a previous occupant. And among the peaceful herd at his owner’s Pennsylvania farm is the venerable ’chaser Mixed Up, nearly a decade removed from his glory days.

These are among the champions who did not go on to glitzy stud deals, nor did they end up on accessible public display at places like the Kentucky Horse Park or Old Friends Equine. They are Eclipse Award geldings of recent years, healthy and content to live out their days as just plain horses, when they are anything but.

Declan’s Moon, who raced for Mace and Samantha Siegel, was the champion 2-year-old male of 2004 when he went 5 for 5, including victories in the Del Mar Futurity and CashCall Futurity. He was injured at 3, missed the classics, and never was able to recapture his finest form. But in retirement he did show enough promise as a dressage performer to headline the off-the-track Thoroughbred program of second careers.

“He was just too headstrong and had his own ideas about what he wanted to do, and that’s not a good trait for a show horse,” said Josh Pons, whose family owns Country Life Farm near Bel Air, Md. “Answering to a lot of complicated demands, including slowing down, just wasn’t his style. But he did make the cover of ‘The Maryland Horse.’ ”

Declan’s Moon spends his days in a field near Winters Run, the stream coursing through Country Life, alongside a pair of the Pons family riding horses.

“Other than that he’s just eating hay, spooking at deer, and sometimes he’ll let you catch him to adjust his blanket when it blows over his ass,” Pons added.

About a half-hour to the east of Country Life, up by the Pennsylvania border, Graham Motion has carved out a retirement home for old soldiers at his Fair Hill training stables. The current celebrity gelding is Main Sequence, whose 2014 campaign for Flaxman Holdings was climaxed by victory in the Breeders’ Cup Turf and who earned Eclipse Awards as champion older male and male turf horse.

“He is turned out with Gala Spinaway every day,” Motion said. “He took the spot occupied by Better Talk Now.”

Talk about context. Better Talk Now, also a Breeders’ Cup Turf winner, was a living monument at Fair Hill until his death last June. As for Gala Spinaway, he was a multiple stakes winner who this year is celebrating his 30th birthday.

Jonathan Sheppard knows how long old champions can hang around. He trained three-time Eclipse champion jumper Flatterer, who lived to be 36. Mixed Up, Sheppard’s champion Eclipse Award steeplechaser of 2009, turned 19 this year after competing in his last race at age 12.

“He’s living a life of leisure at Bill Pape’s farm in Unionville, with a couple of other retirees, and he’s doing well,” said Sheppard, who trains his horses most of the year not far away in West Grove, Pa.

Mixed Up won nearly $800,000 in a career of 55 starts, highlighted by victories in such major ’chases as the Colonial Cup, the New York Turf Writers Cup, and two runnings of the A.P. Smithwick.

“Steeplechase horses seem to adapt to a second career much better than racehorses,” Sheppard said. “In Mixed Up’s case, he was a little bit of a handful to ride. And he had a bit of an injury at the end, so we never really got around to seeing if someone wanted to take him on as some sort of second-career horse.”

There were some thoughts of giving 2012 and 2013 Horse of the Year Wise Dan a second career as a lead pony following his retirement in 2015. But in the end he has become a fixture at the central Kentucky farm of his trainer, Charlie LoPresti.

Wise Dan, now 11, spends his time in a 20 acrefield with his stakes-winning older half-brother Successful Dan. Both are owned by Morton Fink.

“They roughhouse and play, real happy and sound, and couldn’t look any better,” LoPresti said. “We’ve been real careful about not letting them get too overweight. But anyway they’d rather be outside in the barn, even in winter, so we get them out all the time.

LoPresti and his wife, Amy, welcome Wise Dan visitors with open arms.

“We get cards and letters for Wise Dan all the time,” LoPresti said. “We’ve had cancer survivors come here who have followed his career, kids come out all the time. He’s a very docile, very intelligent horse. We’ll give people the lead shank and let them hold him while they get their picture taken.

“Wise Dan’s not showing any signs of slowing down,” LoPresti added. “I kind of wish I had those two horses in training again. You know, every time they ran they showed up. Even when they got beat – and Wise Dan didn’t get beat too often – they ran their race. That’s a hard thing to do anymore.

“But we’re just so grateful to be able to look out your door at night and see those two at the fence, waiting for an apple,” LoPresti said. “They’ve done a lot for us.”