It's All About Time for Kate Goldenberg

-By Nikki Sherman for the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association

Just about anyone can find a home with Kate Goldenberg, whose presence in the equestrian world spans a lifetime. Her 501(c)(3) organization Safe Haven Equine Rescue in Perkasie, Pennsylvania, houses people, horses, dogs, peacocks, a flying squirrel and most recently, a newborn lamb whose mother rejected her. The farm also regularly draws a diverse group of volunteers to help, especially with the Thoroughbred retirees that she has lovingly accepted for rehabilitation and rehoming after racing.

“I feel like anybody who’s here is meant to be here,” Goldenberg said.

Only within the past 10-15 years has responsible racehorse retirement become a cause that draws headlines. However, Goldenberg has been rehabbing, retraining and rehoming Thoroughbreds for decades. As a breeder, she always welcomes back any homebred onto the farm after their racing careers are over. Safe Haven Equine Rescue is also a Partner Farm for Parx Racing’s Turning for Home and she has become well known for accepting even the toughest cases.

“We try and make that a priority,” she said in regards to her homebreds. “I feel like if you made them then you’re absolutely responsible for them.”

Goldenberg firmly believes that there is no better healer than Mother Nature and time. “I took a horse named Noble Tu from the track years ago who had a huge bow, high, middle and low. Everybody was asking what in the world I was doing because he could barely walk onto my trailer.” 

Noble Tu was a 1978 son of Noble Jay, out of a Count Fleet mare. She gave the PA-Bred plenty of time off as well as collaborating with a friend by using alternative methods such as early versions of magnetic therapy and using staples. With tendon injuries, she has her own opinions on rehabilitation. Most people keep horses with soft tissue injuries in a stall for several months to heal. Goldenberg disagrees with this method.

“I bring them home and turn them out in the round pen. They need to keep moving so the scar tissue is able to break apart. And look at what happened with Noble Tu. Everyone said that horse shouldn’t have been able to walk again. Now I have a picture of us jumping probably five feet in my kitchen and he was an Olympian!”

One of the other stories that jumped right to her mind was a warhorse named Nileator, who also retired with a bowed tendon. Many farms shy away from this type of injury due to the length of time it often takes to fully recover, but Goldenberg has no qualms taking horses with any injury. Nileator arrived at her farm with a big bow and spent two months in rehab before an unexpectedly perfect home appeared. A friend suddenly found herself without a beginner lesson horse and even though Nileator was still technically healing from the injury, Goldenberg thought he would be the ideal candidate for the job.

“Nileator had a gift in that if anything was wrong, he’d stop and stand,” she remembered. “And I mean, the wind could be whipping or a kid could lose a stirrup, and he’d stop and stand. Someone else in the ring falls off, stop and stand, no matter what. That’s something you just can’t teach your horse to do. They have to have it in their personality. She says that he’s the best lesson horse she’s ever had. No one’s ever going to fall off because he’s at a standstill.”

Since then, Nileator has fully recovered from his original bowed tendon and is now able to jump with his students. According to Goldenberg, “he looks like a stakes horse and is so well-muscled. I think he was champion jumper at the Horse Park this year.”

In 2017, she took a tall, stunning gray gelding named Buzzword to Kentucky for the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover. She rode him in the Field Hunter division and that’s when Claire Dunkie offered to catch ride in Dressage. Claire fell in love with him and convinced her boss to purchase Buzzword immediately. Goldenberg and Dunkie had never met before but are forever intertwined through Buzzword, who was technically not even for sale at the time.

But it took a long time to get there, and the full story of Buzzword showcases the true power of patience and love. He was bred by the well-known, Grade 1-winning Mercedes Stable and he himself was out of Grade 2 winner Brooke’s Halo. His good looks attracted awestruck gazes on the racetrack every morning. Unfortunately his massive body couldn’t hold up to racing and he blew his tendon so badly that euthanasia was recommended. Goldenberg offered to give him a chance, so she kept him at Safe Haven for over a year before starting his retraining, and the rest is history.

Sound horses also find their ways to Goldenberg and while those are few and far between, she remembers every single one. Sewanee was crowned Parx’s Racing’s “Winningest Horse” in 2013 after crossing the wire first in six of ten starts. He is now a champion show jumper in upstate New York with his new family.

And then there was Dangerous Maize, another sound mare who had a difficult attitude but loved to jump. “She would give people a really hard time,” said Goldenberg. “This girl bought her because her trainer said that if she wanted to be good, she needed to get a horse like her so she could learn to ride with her head. When we had Maize, we tried her over this giant four-foot oxer and she just thundered over it. Everyone wanted to make it higher but I said no, because she was brave enough that she would try it.”

But the horses that Goldenberg and her Safe Haven Equine Rescue are most known for are those that truly need her knowledge, care and patience, like Buzzword. She takes the cast-offs, the horses who nobody wants.

“I have dozens of horses that are not so great but are probably better off than some of the performance horses. All they have to do is eat carrots and get petted. In my little world, a lot of them are fine. I would rather stand in the field and eat carrots and apples than barrel race.

“Hero for Hire was here for a few years. We would wean the babies and put them with her. I would call her in the summer for meals but one day she just wouldn’t come in. We found her behind the hay piles, standing over one of the weanlings who was sleeping. She was literally the best mother ever. She’s now in an embryo transfer program which was perfect.”

And so, Goldenberg continues to accept horses with nagging injuries like Fivefourthreetwone, Yougotthatgoinforu and Uptown Boy. Those three found a home together with a wonderful family. But if she can’t find a suitable home for one, she has no problem keeping the horse, waiting for the right time.

Goldenberg has high praise for the owners who do take horses that are unrideable or can only be trail horses. “I think it’s wonderful when they do find the right home. The passion and love these people have for those horses is pretty incredible.”