From Purpose Inside to Possibility Outside
When Lauren Vannucci learned she’d been accepted into the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation’s Second Chances program at Lowell Correctional Facility, she cried tears of relief, hope, and the feeling that a different future had just come into view. “It truly changed my life,” she says.
The TRF Second Chances program is a vocational training program that places retired Thoroughbred racehorses in correctional facilities, where participants learn daily horse care and workplace skills while providing hands-on stewardship to the horses. The Lowell Correctional Farm, which was launched in 2000, operates on approximately 100 acres and cares for 50 retired racehorses, pairing classroom instruction with barn routines and hands-on horsemanship.
For Vannucci, horses had long been a source of calm. Inside the Second Chances program, they became teachers. The cadence of grooming, leading, and groundwork taught patience, presence, and accountability. “Working with horses has always been a healing time for me. If I can work with and ride these 1,000-pound animals, I can pretty much do anything I strive to do,” she says. The program’s training focus is on feeding, grooming, handling, and safety, which equips participants with transferable skills for equine jobs post-release.
Asked to name a defining challenge, Vannucci points to a young Thoroughbred named OK Dude. Freshly gelded and recently off the track, he tested boundaries. “He pushed my buttons every day until we learned to work correctly with each other,” she recalls. The turning point was not dramatic but incremental: “We annoyed each other, invaded each other’s space, and ultimately taught each other to slow down, breathe, and try again tomorrow. We don’t have to be perfect; we just need to try our best.”
“The farm gave me purpose,” Vannucci says. Through Second Chances, she developed industry-relevant skills and met volunteers who helped her secure employment after release, the program’s intended pathway from training to opportunity. In the years since, Vannucci has publicly shared her story about how the program set her on a new trajectory and why retired racehorses make such powerful partners in rehabilitation and re-entry.
“Second Chances is a great program that can help people change their lives in so many ways,” Vannucci says. “There are good, hard-working people incarcerated who want to live a better life upon release, and they have the skills to be productive members of society.” Her advice to new participants is simple: “Take full advantage of it; it can be life-changing.”
How to Help
Lauren’s second chance and the dignified lifetime care of the horses who made it possible exist because of supporters who believe in TRF’s mission. To sustain Second Chances and sanctuary care at Lowell and other partner facilities, make a gift or sponsor a horse today!
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