The Tradition of Cheating in the Sport of Kings

06/06/2026

04/05/2026

Christ Has Risen

Be thankful that God sent his son Jesus Christ to welcome you into his family. Accept his invitation and forgive people for their mistakes and shortcomings! Ask for forgiveness for your own mistakes and you will be welcomed into a very special place called Heaven! From what I understand, there is nothing like it!!
Happy Easter

01/04/2025

This is for my horse friends that have older dogs

I found Sam on the highway a long time ago! He was been by my side through some very tough times and some very good times! His loyalty and companionship is unmatched and he was a very, very special dog! The first picture where he is sitting with me was taken when he was 2 and the picture right beside it was taken at Quiet Winter when he was over 13 years old!! A while ago Sam started struggling getting up the four stairs to get into the house and I started to worry. He would flounder and I would have to pick up his back end to get him in. As time went on he could no longer walk and I made the very difficult decision to put my best friend to sleep. At the last minute, I had a change of heart and decided to try something! I got in touch with my vet at the racetrack and asked him to order some testosterone for Sam and he agreed that it might help. I gave Sam a half cc and four days later I started to notice a dramatic change in him! He started bouncing up those stairs with no problem! He would run up to me wagging his tail like he used to years ago and was a much happier and healthy dog! I’m not a vet but highly recommend testosterone for old dogs that start to struggle. Sam honestly acted 3 or 4 years younger than he did before I started the treatments! I gave him 1/2 cc every couple of weeks in the shoulder and he had a better quality of life and stayed with me another year and a half before I had to send him home!! I am honestly shocked that veterinarians to not constantly recommend this treatment but feel it might end the unnecessary surgeries for older dogs and hurt their bottom line?? You should be very proactive with your dogs! Look up studies that were done with dogs and testosterone and you might be surprised!! If your vet is not willing to try testosterone treatments, I feel you might want to find a vet that will !!
I Really Miss Sam But Have So Many Special Memories!!!

12/31/2024

Roaring

Roaring, lazy flap and Laryngeal Hemiplegia are the same condition that negatively affect and can possibly end the career of many horses! When this occurs there is a partial collapse of cartilage in the larynx and it blocks a horses airway! A lot of surgeries are performed to correct this problem but I feel the surgeries are rough on a horse and the results are mixed!
Years ago I bought Two Notch Road out of a sale in Maryland. I didn’t have him scoped and had I did, I never would have bought him! I sent him to Jim Hackman’s farm in Virginia, which happens to be where he was born. I decided to have him scoped him just to check if all is well and it wasn’t! Jim called me and told me that Two Notch had a lazy flap on the left side and the vet recommended surgery right away! I was visiting my mother at the time and told her I was really upset with the news from the vet! My mother had a friend that was a speech therapist and gave her a call. Her friend informed her how much magnets helped people with throat problems! I called Jim and told him to hold off on the surgery and that I was going to try the magnets. I ordered two Nikken magnets and bought a cribbing strap. I used a vetrap and positioned the magnets on each side of his neck and left the strap on 24-7. Two Notch Road broke his maiden in a two year old stake going a mile and then the following year he broke the track record going a mile and a sixteenth on the turf! Horses with breathing problems don’t break track records going long!! That record still stands today, fourteen years later! The magnets did an amazing job for Two Notch and he raced until he was twelve years old! I let trainers Derrick Ryan and Mark Henning try the magnets and both had great results!
My point is, I feel that owners and trainers should try the magnets before doing that dicey surgery! If it helps your horse as much as it helped Two Notch, you will be in great shape!!

Glenn Thompson

10/12/2024

Help For Horses With Ulcers

The first thing I would like to say is that I am not an ulcer expert but I am a horse expert. I can tell by looking over a horse and looking in their eyes if they are happy and healthy.
Many horses suffer dearly because of ulcers. The products that are available to help are limited and some of the omeprazole products are very expensive. To keep a horse on these products will be similar to making a mortgage payment on a small house and most people can’t afford to do that. This is a problem for me because I feel at 90% of the horses that could benefit from these medications will never receive them because of the profits that the pharmaceutical companies insist on making. They are choosing greed over taking care of the horses in need and that’s not a good look! The omeprazole products also have a list of side effects that I feel are concerning.
With all that being said, I found a product that has been around for a long time that I feel works much better at a fraction of the cost! I do add a little kicker to it and the blood counts have been amazing as you can see in the pics. The product is called Nutrient Buffer and the kicker that I add is a liquid vitamin called Red Glo. I have a 6 year old mare named Judgement Time that had ulcers and for a while, I used the omeprazole products. The omeprazole definitely helped but there were plenty of days that JT did not finish her lunch or dinner and the blood counts were not even close to what you see here! What I do is take a 60 cc oral syringe and put 20 cc’s of Red Glo in it and then put 40 cc’s of Nutrient Buffer. They get a dose right before each meal! The horses actually love the flavor and will come to you like you are giving them a treat! The Nutrient Buffer and the Red Glo both cost right around $60 per gallon. The Buffer will last you over one month and Red Glow will last you two or three months! I really appreciate the fact that the Nutrient Buffer company keeps their product very affordable so that people on a tight budget can take care of their equine companions! The horses pictured are Judgement Time and Power and Glory and they have been racing for the last five months. The blood counts you see were taken a few weeks ago and speak volumes about how well this combination works! If you want to save thousands of dollars over the next year and improve your horses health, I highly recommend you try the Nutrient Buffer and Red Glo!! Your horses will thank you and perform at their best!!

Glenn Thompson

09/25/2024

The Stage Is Set

We have Power And Glory running in the 6th race at Aqueduct tomorrow. The race is a New York Bred stake race for fillies and mares going a mile and an eighth on the turf. The race is named “The John Hettinger” and has very stiff competition. This race was not my first choice by any means and how we got here is an interesting story that goes back a few years. I first entered Power and Glory in an allowance race on the turf and the race went but we were an “also eligible” and needed a couple of scratches to draw in. We didn’t get any scratches and couldn’t race. The next race that I entered in was a NY bred 2 other than. I put her in three days in a row and sadly they never used the race. This led to two final options: the stake race that I am in or the NY bred 1 other than which was the logical spot to put her in all along! The problem I had with the logical race is that it was scheduled for Sunday and a test of faith was put before me! Before I go any further I want to show you a chapter out of my book that relates to this topic.

Do Angels Come to Visit?

For assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one title will buy no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. (Matthew 5:18 KJV)

—Jesus Christ

When I am training racehorses in Aiken, I have one steady rider and hire freelance riders when I need the two-year-olds to go out in pairs. The freelance riders show up very early in the morning before they go to work for their own outfits, and we get the babies out in the dark. A couple of weeks ago, I had the riders come in on Sunday so we could take the babies up to the main track and school them in the gate. I don’t like training on Sunday and believe in following God’s advice, or shall we say commandment, and have a day of rest! I rationalized a bit and trained anyway. This week, I was going to do the same but, for some reason, I was really struggling with it. I am not only working on Sunday myself but also asking other people to do it as well.
Friday, I was in the acute care psychiatric ward in Charleston, South Carolina. I am sorry to disappoint many of my “close friends,” but I was not being committed! I was there to visit a friend. I was waiting to talk with my friend, and a tall man with long red hair approached me on the couch. He introduced himself and said he was a patient in the hospital. He seemed very kind and coherent and had my attention! There was something about him that I liked! I had a sense that he was a very special man! He indicated that he was in the hospital because of his faith, and then he hit me with a question that had me scratching my head! He asked me if I knew that “working on the Sabbath is a sin”? He explained that it is one of the commandments and should be taken much more seriously!
This was sort of a “wow moment” because I was thinking about it a lot on the way to Charleston. I looked at him with a smile on my face and came up with my best defense. I explained to him that I worked with horses, and they require care seven days a week. I then mentioned that Christ even used a sheep as an excuse to work on the Sabbath. He was much better versed with the Bible than I, and we sat and talked for a while. I really enjoyed our conversation and honestly felt that he was in that hospital to speak to me! when I went back to work on Saturday morning, I cancelled our Sunday training session!
So the question I have for everyone is does God send angels when we are struggling for answers? Or was my new friend at that hospital at that time, with that specific advice just by coincidence? I am going with angels in the psych ward in Charleston, South Carolina, and they might be putting me in there next week to join my friend!

Before I go any further I want to explain that money is tight right now and we need to gather some acorns for the winter in Aiken! The purse on the allowance race is $80,000 and that would absolutely have taken care of that! The purse on the stake race is $125,000 but my odds in the stake are going to be over 50 to 1! I would have been one of the favorites in the allowance race! Every time I thought about going in the race on Sunday, I had a bad feeling. The memory of that special man in the hospital kept coming back to me and my ultimate conclusion was that if God went out of his way to send an Angel to speak to me about one of the Ten Commandments, that I might want to pay attention and listen to his timely advice!!
I skipped the allowance race and it ran last Sunday. I looked at the results and felt we could have easily won. Now I am looking forward to racing tomorrow in the stake. I have very mixed emotions about how things came together but know in my soul that win, lose or draw, I did the right thing!!

Glenn Thompson

Photo of Davy Jones and Catechol by Equiphoto

Race horse trainer Glenn Thompson shares his experiences and knowledge with the Sport of Kings.

08/23/2024

Power And Glory’s Trip To Saratoga

The picture below I am attempting to give instructions to jockey Meli Iorio in the paddock. In the background we are getting photobombed by Power And Glory and it looks like she’s trying to listen in??
The post I did a couple of days ago about this trip and our chances of doing well in this very difficult race was well received. There was a lot of support and I could feel people were genuinely rooting for us! Power and Glory ran her lifetime best and finished 4th when the pressure was on at the most prestigious track in the country! Was finishing 4th a great achievement? If you consider her talent level 3 races back it is quite a remarkable performance. The smile on my assistant Alejandro’s face after the race said it all! He has been riding her every day out at Overbrook Farm and kept telling me how good she was feeling! Her jockey, Melissa was trying to smile but she was having trouble breathing. She had never ridden in a 1 3/8 race before and put in everything she had to hit the board! Power and Glory sensing her weakness after the race decided to make her suffer for hitting her with the whip and ran off after the race!! I want to give props to Mike Smith. I asked him to speak with Melissa and give her any advice he could about the long distance races. He called her the morning of the race and I believe gave her very good advice! This was Melissa’s first trip to Saratoga and nailing Ramon Vazquez, Flavien Pratt and Tyler Gaffalione at the wire in a 4 horse photo was quite an accomplishment! I am very happy to have her onboard and proud of the way she handled herself!
This fourth place finish meant more to me than many can understand. The horse Sy B that ran in a Grade 1, 2 her last two starts was the one that on paper should have beaten us by 25 lengths. She did beat us but she only beat us by three lengths! Considering Power and Glory’s humble beginnings that’s not too bad!!
I want to that everyone for coming along for the ride and hope I we have a lot more excitement in the coming months!!