Thoroughbred Makeover Contestant: ‘He Showed Me What You Can Do If You Just Fight’

Lindsay Turcotte didn’t expect that a morning at Century Mile Racetrack in September 2020 would change her whole world, but it did.

The racetrack traditionally held a special open house the week of the Grade 3 Canadian Derby to preview the contenders and allow the public to meet the horses’ connections. In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was open only to owners and trainers, but Turcotte (no relation to Secretariat’s legendary jockey) got an invitation from a friend and came to watch the Derby horses work out at the Alberta track.

Turcotte, a longtime fan of racing and off-the-track Thoroughbreds, was snapping photos of the horses as they galloped by. A bay gelding wearing yellow blinkers came down the lane and she felt her world pause for a moment.

“I just looked at the hind leg on the horse and the way he moved and went, ‘That could be a dressage horse,’ ” Turcotte remembered. “I’m like, ‘Maybe he’s just running here and he’ll go down the ranks fairly soon and maybe, maybe I could get my hands on him.’ ”

Turcotte had some frame of reference for what would make a good dressage horse. She had taken one OTTB to second level and had the chance to school a warmblood in Prix St. Georges. She’d loved the OTTBs she’d worked with, but thought she’d sworn off them after a couple of rough experiences with soundness issues.

Real Grace wasn’t the longest shot entered in the Canadian Derby, but his odds were long enough at 18-1. The son of Mineshaft came to the race with the strongest human interest story in the field. His trainer and co-owner Shelley Brown had been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer just a few weeks before the race. She’d gone into the doctor with a sore shoulder and come out with tests showing cancer in her lungs, stomach, ovaries, bones and lymph nodes. Brown and her doctors were shocked the disease had progressed so far without anyone catching it, and were doing a battery of follow-up tests to determine what, if any, treatment would fit her situation. Without treatment, they estimated she had three to six months to live. Brown sold several of her horses and tack, but her fellow trainers convinced her to keep some, to give her something to live for.

At the time, Turcotte didn’t know Brown but was one of many people pulling for her horse. Brown was in a hospital in Winnipeg, some 13 hours from Century Mile, the night of the Canadian Derby. She watched the race on her phone.

“I was actually able to stay awake, and I can’t tell you the feeling I had to watch that race, watch that horse go to the front,” Brown told the Paulick Report. “I saw Synergy coming, the heavy favorite, and I thought he would blow right by us. My horse had to dig deep. … Actually, the race was showing on a slight delay, because at the eighth pole my best friend’s text popped up on screen, ‘OMG you just won a Derby!’

“When there’s no reason to get up in the morning, it was the one thing that made me go, ‘You know what? This horse was 18-1, and he showed me what you can do if you just fight.’ ”

Eventually, Turcotte worked up the nerve to ask Brown about the long-term plans for the gelding. She assumed Brown and co-owners Jean McEwen and Bette Holtman would put him out to pasture when he retired, but Brown told her their policy was to send horses for sport horse careers after racing. Brown herself has some experience in the hunter/jumper world, often cross-trains her racehorses in winter, and promised Turcotte that when Real Grace plateaued, instead of going to the claiming ranks, he would go to her.

Real Grace ran three more seasons—14 more races, with four more wins, including two stakes. Turcotte’s job at the track became a full-time gig, enabling her to fall more in love with Real Grace. In August 2023, Brown called Turcotte as she considered whether to enter one more race, and said, “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to him. Do you still want him?”

“The next thing I know, he’s on the trailer headed from Winnipeg,” Turcotte said. “And I own Real Grace. And I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I’ve got to go to the Thoroughbred Makeover.’ ”

The Thoroughbred Makeover is an annual competition put on by the Retired Racehorse Project which showcases the versatility of off-track Thoroughbreds. Participating horses and trainers have no more than 10 months of under-saddle time to transition a horse into up to two of 10 disciplines. Each horse/rider combo performs a preset test of their preparedness and potential for their chosen disciplines, with one champion chosen for each discipline.

By the time Turcotte took “Grayson,” as she calls him, it had been some time since she’d ridden, let alone trained, a green OTTB. Fortunately, Grayson has proven to be a quick study, largely due to his fantastic brain.

The pair competed at their first dressage show in August, where Turcotte said Grayson was a little hotter than she’d hoped, but he is starting to put the pieces together. She is trying to get him off the farm to as many different types of outings as possible.

“After not riding for three weeks, I hauled him off to a polocrosse clinic, and he was the one they were using to demonstrate, bouncing balls off him,” she said. “One of the players did use him for a little bit when they were playing chukkers.

“He’s got an incredible mind on him,” she added. “He’s level-headed and thinks through situations.”

The process of teaching a race horse how to use his topline and body differently is not a short or an easy one. Turcotte said the right lead canter remains elusive, and upward transitions can take a few strides to balance, but she’s starting to get little glimpses of what’s possible. They’re starting to experience trot lengthenings and are beginning to work on walk-canter transitions and even some small turns on the haunches.

“Grayson is very strong behind, very strong in his back,” she said. “He was very well-managed, maintained, and is a very sound horse. I just think he’s got all the pieces and mechanics, he’s got the canter, and as he learns to lift and reach through his shoulders more, I don’t think any of this is going to be hard for him.”

Grayson has proven to be such a quick study that he took Brown for a short ride—her first in years after a bad accident on the track—over the summer. Turcotte had to twist her arm, but after a dressage ride one day, she cajoled his track trainer into swinging a leg over.

“She said the last time she got on a horse she had a panic attack and genuinely didn’t think she would ever ride again,” Turcotte said. “But he just makes a person feel so safe. And I think that’s the biggest gift of Real Grace. He’s always just what you need at that moment. He’s what Shelley needed when he loaded into the starting gates for the Canadian Derby; he’s what Shelley needed at that time to find the strength to push through, and he’s what I needed to get through some tough times in the last year.”

Brown’s battle with cancer has intensified in recent weeks, four years after her original diagnosis. She says Grayson has given her so much joy and energy through those years, whatever his athletic vocation.

“He came along at a time when I was at my darkest point and he gave me some hope,” Brown said. “I’ve been doing really good up until these past few weeks, and I’ve gone downhill. I don’t expect to be around much longer … but to be able to watch his journey, it gives you something to look forward to.

“From the day I brought him home, he just looked like a star.”

Turcotte had hoped Grayson’s racing connections would all be present at the Makeover; now, she’s hopeful Brown will be able to watch him compete from her home base in Canada. As the days wind down to their trip to Kentucky, Turcotte is grateful for support from Century Mile Racetrack, the horsemen and breeders’ organizations in Alberta, and individual owners and trainers who will be behind them as they start the lengthy journey. She’s not sure how he will handle the Kentucky Horse Park’s big atmosphere, where he’ll perform training level test 2 and strut his stuff in a freestyle. Regardless of how they score, Turcotte said she’ll be incredibly proud to be there with him.

Although the Makeover is a bucket-list show for many people, it’s just the start for Turcotte and Grayson’s partnership—and just one more chapter in Brown’s Thoroughbred legacy.

The Retired Racehorse Project’s 2024 Thoroughbred Makeover begins Oct. 9 at the Kentucky Horse Park. Click here for more information. Follow along with Grayson’s trip to the Makeover here.