New Vocations Grad Irbywood Earns 2021 TAKE2 Jet Run Award

Michael and Sharon Kvistad adopted Irbywood from New Vocations in 2014. The 12-year-old gelding earned the TAKE2 Jet Run Champion Jumper award this year. Photo: SportFot

New Vocations Grad Irbywood Earns 2021 TAKE2 Jet Run Award

Irbywood was a blue-blooded colt who sold for $625,000 as a 2-year-old and broke his maiden at Gulfstream Park. Mo Bandit never hit the board while making his five career starts at Penn National. What do the two horses have in common? They were both retired through accredited aftercare organizations and found success in second careers in the show ring. They are also both winners of the 2021 TAKE2 Jet Run Award.

Irbywood was retired through the New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program, while Mo Bandit retired through After the Races. 

The TAKE2 Jet Run Award was created in 2016 to recognize the importance of the organizations that transition racehorses to second careers. The Award, named for the Show Jumping Hall of Fame inductee, honors the TAKE2 Thoroughbred League High-Point Hunter and Jumper that graduated from an aftercare program accredited by the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance or affiliated with the Thoroughbred Charities of America.

Jet Run Champion Jumper Irbywood was raced by Stonestreet Stable. He was retired after undergoing surgery for a condylar fracture, and given ample time to recover before being sent to New Vocations, the country’s oldest and largest racehorse adoption program. New Vocations, established in 1992, has facilities in Kentucky, Louisiana, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and retrains and rehomes approximately 500 retired Thoroughbred and Standardbred racehorses every year.

Anna Ford, New Vocations’ Thoroughbred Program Director, remembers the bay’s first days at their facility. “He came into our program ready to start transitional training, as Stonestreet has provided all the rehabilitation for him,” she said. “He was a very stout yet elegant gelding who had great confidence and was full of class. We didn't have to work with him much to realize he was an athletic and talented gelding. He was only with us for a month.”

Irbywood raced for Barbara Banke's Stonestreet Stable before coming to New Vocations to find a second career. Photo: Coglianese Photos

Aftercare organizations provide the necessary rehabilitation for every horse, and give each one the foundation needed to excel in a second career. But their most important role might be placing the horses with the perfect adopter. Irbywood was adopted by Michael and Sharon Kvistad of Indiana. How did New Vocations know this was the right fit?

“Mike and Sharon were past adopters and have always done an amazing job helping each horse reach its full potential,” Ford said. “They had contacted us looking for their next project.  Once we started working with Irbywood it became apparent that he would be a good match for them.”

The Kvistads brought Irbywood home in October of 2014.

“We have adopted a number of horses from New Vocations since we moved to Indiana in 2002,” Michael Kvistad said. “Prior to that we bred, raised, and trained Thoroughbreds for the hunter ring. Thoroughbreds have been our breed of preference since the 1980s. Sharon competed for years in the hunter ring as an amateur.

“We discovered New Vocations in the early 2000s as we transitioned from the breeding aspect of the industry,” he continued. “Our first horse from New Vocations was a horse by the name of Sox and the City, who went on to become a zone champion as a hunter. We currently have Irbywood and another New Vocations adoptee, Italian Syndicate, in our barn.”

Kvistad was quick to credit a team of people for Irbywood’s achievements in the show ring.

“We are blessed to have a great primary vet in Janssen Vet Clinic; our farrier, Dion O'Brien; our trainer, Michael Burnett; and amateur rider Taylor Embs, who allow us to remain involved in a sport which has been a part of our lives since we were both much younger than we are today,” he said.

He was also enthusiastic in his praise for New Vocations.

“New Vocations is important to the equine industry, not just racing, because they serve as a qualified gateway linking the owners, professionals, and amateurs in various equine sports with the racing industry,” Kvistad said. “Most Thoroughbreds in the country are bred for the racing industry. But the Thoroughbreds are competing in the jumper, hunter, eventing, western, dressage, and multiple other disciplines in equine sport beyond racing. The equine industry needs organizations like New Vocations to link the various involvements for Thoroughbreds in a qualified and professional manner.”

Mo Bandit, who finished in the top 10 in the Hunter Division of the TAKE2 Thoroughbred League, was adopted by owner Melissa Rega from After the Races, a Thoroughbred rehabilitation and rehoming center located in Elkton, Maryland.