By Michael Copley
Staff writer

The dogs at his hoofs follow him from the barn into the yard and when he stops, they scramble to nip and lick his nose.

“He’s a true gentleman,” said Danielle Mason, the horse’s handler. The six-year-old horse’s name is Scrappy T and he took second place in the 2005 Preakness after a thrilling five-win lead-up to the race.

Now he lives on the Mason family property in Powhatan, a rookie in his new gig, a racer away from the track.

Danielle worked at the tracks around Scrappy T beginning in 2005, but she hadn’t the chance to handle him until now. “He was the big shot back then,” she says, flashing a proud smile at the behemoth in the stall behind us.

Scrappy T is huge, with muscles that bulge at the joints and a brown coat that glistens even against a gray sky. He’s absolutely impressive, and it’s obvious this animal can move very, very quickly.

But his demeanor is not what you would expect from a former racing great. He acts more like pet than conditioned athlete; gentle with strangers, patient during pictures, and obliging to the dogs that circle him, whining. 

“He’s my buddy,” said Danielle, “I can come out here [to the barn] when I’m having a bad day and he’ll stand in his stall looking at me like he understands.”

But Scrappy T hasn’t always been the horse with the “whatever” attitude that Danielle speaks of.

Danielle’s father, William Mason, remembers a young Scrappy T “so mean his first trainer slid the feed bowl under the stall because he was so scared of him.” Marshall Dowell is the horse’s owner and William Mason remembers that “after Marshall had him snipped, he became a totally different horse ... he got his mind off the women.”

William Mason estimates Scrappy T grossed between $940,000 and $950,000 over his career. “He was a big money horse,” said Danielle.

But race horses aren’t all as lucky as Scrappy T. They face a variety of fates when their professional careers are over, usually when the horse is about six years old. Danielle mentions a new foundation for retired racers - a program that gives the horses to prisoners, as a sort of therapy for both parties. In other cases the horses are given away, and sometimes they are led to slaughter.

When I ask her about the treatment of race horses generally, she smiles like she’s been waiting for it.

“Yeah,” she says, “I guess the treatment the horse gets depends a lot on the trainer, I’ve seen some really nice things and some things that weren’t, but on the whole I think they’re taken care of.”

Scrappy T gets a daily workout, fox hunts, takes Sundays off, enjoys good hay — “not the crappy stuff,” said Williams — and relishes peppermints. And he isn’t left alone in the fields with the other horses. “He’d just let them beat up on him, he’d get kicked, and he’s a two million dollar horse,” his handler modestly concedes. The “they” Williams refers to are the miniature ponies that stalk the field next to the barn; and they’re not impressed by track times.

The life and times of Scrappy T

• Career earnings: between $940,000 and $950,000

• Took second place purse at 130th running of Preakness Stakes

• Entering the Preakness Scrappy T had won three of nine career starts and earned $279,120.

• Prior to Preakness Scrappy T never finished worse than third.

• Favorite treats are peppermints.

• Currently living the good life, fox hunting with his handler Danielle.