Thoroughbreds have been a cornerstone of my life since my first off-track Thoroughbred (OTTB) came into my life when I was 12. Skip’s racing days were long before my time with him and he was already a seasoned show horse when he came into my life, but that was all it took to spark a love affair with racing and Thoroughbreds.

I spent the next few years doing a deep dive into the sport and in 2016 got involved in the media side of things through photography. I was lucky enough to get to travel to many racetracks covering big races for several different outlets. It’s safe to say I was hooked.

Jordan Sigmon with her first OTTB, Skip. (Courtesy of Jordan Sigmon)

In 2017, I spent two weeks of my summer at Crestwood Farm getting a taste of the breeding side of the industry. After coming back for a portion of the Keeneland November breeding stock sale with Crestwood, I ended up making the decision to move to Lexington, Ky., full time to intern with them while I finished up high school online.

Two years later, my first OTTB straight off the track, Lanse Mitan, came into my life when a flashy chestnut arrived at the farm looking for a new job. Lucky for me, he was in one of the barns I regularly worked in and, after a couple of months, I drove him across the street to Antebellum Farm where I was boarding my Warmblood at the time. He was the perfect ambassador for the breed right away. While some of the more technical aspects of things took some time, that horse never turned a hair, went everywhere, and did everything from day one. It felt like a full-circle moment as well because he was in that first group of foals I had gotten to work with three summers before, and like my very first OTTB, Skip, he was a chestnut.

About six months later, I saw some chatter on the internet about a former stakes horse running at a very low level at Fonner Park and decided to peruse their entries for the week to see if there were others that fit that bill. I found a horse named Barry Lee who had sold for $380,000 as a 2-year-old and was a multiple graded stakes-placed stakes winner running for $2,500. At the time, I had been saving up some money to buy a weanling to pinhook that November but decided this may be a more important way to use that cash, so I connected with his owner/trainer through Facebook and got a deal worked out to retire him and ship him to me in Kentucky.

Barry arrived extraordinarily skinny but I could tell he was going to be a beautiful horse once he put some weight on. The process was slower with him as it took a lot of groceries and, once he was in good enough shape to ride, it was clear that he was a much hotter ride than Lanse. He probably taught me more about patience and trusting the process than any horse I’ve ever had. He also taught me the most about being a good steward of the animal. Barry had an osselet in his right front that was cold set when I got him, and X-rays by my vet at the time found that it probably wouldn’t be much of an issue for a second career. A little more than a year after I got him, he started to show some lameness in that leg and I had new X-rays done that revealed the osselet was active again and at this point we made the decision that being a pasture ornament would probably be the best thing for him. So, we turned him out and he was doing quite well until late July of 2022 when the leg started bothering him again. I had more X-rays and scans done and they showed the osselet was progressing even more. After consulting with just about every veterinarian I knew, hoping someone would come up with the magic solution to no avail, it was clear to me what the next step was going to be.

Barry had gone from rambunctious to hiding off by himself away from the other horses and was losing weight and spending a lot of time not bearing full weight on the leg. At only 7 years old it would not have been fair to put him through a lifetime of pain, so I made the difficult decision to humanely euthanize him — it felt like the kindest thing I could have done for him.

It’s funny how these horses can connect you with people and open doors you may not even know you need at the time. In early 2022, I was looking for a change and reached out to Brooke Baker, the wife of Lanse’s former trainer, Rodolphe Brisset, to ask if they needed a hotwalker since the backside of racetrack was the only part of the industry I hadn’t yet experienced. I went to work for them and actually ended up working as a foreman for them for most of 2022. I learned so much in that time and was so fortunate to be around so many quality horses, including Yuugiri and We the People.

Sigmon's new OTTB Valobra. (Courtesy of Jordan Sigmon)

Looking back, I think it helps so much to understand what every aspect of a horse’s life has been like when you get them off the track.

By the end of the year, I was dealing with some health issues. I decided that while I still loved horses and racing, I didn’t want them to be my job anymore. I enrolled in EMT school and, after four months of school, began my EMS journey at Boyle County. Having the horses to decompress has proved a massive help in dealing with the ups and downs that come with this job. It’ll be an even bigger help to have that outlet for stress as I juggle being in paramedic school while working full-time over this next year.

Last fall, I decided that I was ready for another Thoroughbred in my life and was scrolling through Facebook when I came across a just-posted eight-second video and screenshot of a plain bay gelding that made up for the lack of color with probably one of the best trots you’ll see in a Thoroughbred, especially one who had raced only a week prior. Ever impulsive, I immediately got to work figuring out how to make him mine. The next day, I drove to the farm he was at and brought him home with me.

That gelding’s name is Valobra, known around the barn as “Maverick.” He was certainly bred to be a star — by Ghostzapper and a half-brother to Texas Horse of the Year and millionaire Texas Chrome — but luckily for me did not inherit the family talent, earning only $550 in three starts. I wish I could say it was love at first ride with him but I’m not one to sugarcoat things: it wasn’t.

Sigmon making progress with Maverick. (Courtesy of Jordan Sigmon)

Maverick was completely wild the first ride, doing more than a few of his best Hi Ho Silver impersonations and everything in between. For a moment, I thought I had made a huge mistake. But in between the wild moments, the things he was doing right felt so good and I knew if we could figure each other out I’d have a really awesome horse.

He spent most of the next few months just being a horse and going on the occasional trail ride to keep us under the 15-ride limit for Thoroughbred Makeover eligibility. Once December hit, I tried him over some jumps and he was a natural once he understood I wanted him to go over it. We still have some arguments about who’s in charge; he’s a bit like a grumpy teenager testing his boundaries at this stage, but we take it day by day and each day has been better than the last.

My hope is to do either show hunters or show jumpers with him in October, but I’ll let him lead the way as to what that looks like at each step in the road. I always keep my favorite saying when it comes to horses in the back of my head: do right by the horse and the horse will do right by you. Needless to say, I’m so excited to be participating in the Thoroughbred Makeover for the first time this year and I’ve got an excellent partner.

The Jockey Club supports many aftercare initiatives including the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, the only accrediting body in aftercare, and Thoroughbred Incentive Program (T.I.P.), which encourages the retraining of Thoroughbreds into other disciplines upon completion of careers. View all of the initiatives supported by The Jockey Club.