A senior from Yorktown High School will be one of the youngest riders in a competition that brings second careers to older horses. Sujata Thornton heads to Lexington, Kentucky, next week as the only junior competitor from Arlington at the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover. It’s the world’s largest competition for racehorses that have retired from their careers on the track.
The 17-year-old will be riding Hunter (his registered name for competitions is Hold the Line), a 4-year-old gelding who was retired from racing because of an injured ligament in one of his legs. He’s since been rehabilitated at Pastured Place, a nonprofit thoroughbred rescue that owns him. Thornton has spent eight months training him to be ready to run again.
“I’m really excited to show his owners how far he has come because he has made so much progress. If you looked at him now and [had looked at] him in March, that’s not the same horse,” says Thornton, who’s been riding since she was a toddler. “I’m just really, really proud of him.”
The Arlington teen came to train Hold the Line after seeing a Facebook post from Pastured Place about its plan to sponsor a junior, amateur and professional in The Thoroughbred Makeover. She applied and went through some interviews before going to meet the horses she thought would be a good match for her. “I loved him,” she says of Hold the Line. “He’s a sweetheart.”
Thornton has been training him for two of the race’s 10 disciplines: Show Hunter and Show Jumper. Both events involve jumping over fences, but show hunting is more about how the horse moves and looks, while show jumping is based on speed. (Other categories include Barrel Racing, Dressage, Polo and Freestyle.)
As of August, 46 junior trainers had showed intent to compete in the makeover (out of 226 total trainers), says Kristen Kovatch Bentley, communications manager at the Retired Racehorse Project. The Show Jumper and Show Hunter categories each have 17 junior competitors.
“I really got into show hunters, honestly, because…it’s so pretty,” Thornton says. “It’s fun for me.”
The event will take place Oct. 11-14 at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky. Preliminary rounds will happen the first two days, and the top five in each discipline will advance to the Finale, a separate championship event.
This is actually Thornton’s second attempt at participating in The Thoroughbred Makeover. In 2022, she was accepted to ride a horse she owned named She Don’t Apologize, but the horse developed ulcers and back problems. About a month before the event, she decided to put the horse’s health first and pull out of the running.
“It took a really big toll on me, not only because I couldn’t get to competition, but there’s so much wrong with that horse. She’s still not even rideable to this day,” Thornton says, adding that she sold the horse but is in contact with the new owner.
Inspired by her mother’s love of horses, Thornton got her first pony, Little Blackie, when she was 2 and he was 3. At age 11, she acquired Romeo, another pony. Her passion for thoroughbreds started when she spent two years going to a fox-hunting barn—“we don’t kill the foxes, we just chase them,” she says. She rode many horses there, most of them thoroughbreds.
Then she got a horse named Whistle Worthy. “She was supposed to be my competition horse, but my mom loved her so much, she stole her from me. Now she’s our trail horse,” says Thornton, who is applying to colleges to study veterinary equine science.
She first heard about the makeover from her former trainer, Jennifer Brooks Lee of Jennifer Lee Jumpers in The Plains, Virginia. Interest piqued, Thornton went to an event and was hooked.
“So much of the racing industry is just about money and how successful the horse is,” Thornton says. “After the horse has won as much as it can to its potential, a [large number are] discarded to kill factories.”
The Retired Racehorse Project aims to dispel the idea that thoroughbreds are good only for racing by showcasing their talents in the makeover categories. “Thoroughbreds can do it all,” Thornton says. “They’re so versatile. They don’t have to be discarded after they’re done racing.”
Since the makeover’s inception in 2013, the Retired Racehorse Project has invested more than $34 million into 4,159 horses.
In the leadup to the Kentucky event, Thornton will work with Hold the Line three times a week under the guidance of trainer Brittany Hebets Miller at Cabin Branch Farm in Marshall, Virginia.
After the event, Hold the Line will either go to a new owner—he’s available for adoption—or Thornton may make him hers. (He would live at Jennifer Lee Jumpers.) “I’m so attached to him,” she says.