Mareworthy Charities, a Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance-accredited nonprofit, was founded with an exclusive mission to protect and rehome retired Thoroughbred broodmares. It addresses the specific risks and market dynamics these mares face, providing a dedicated path to safe, permanent homes.
Founded in 2022, Mareworthy currently leases a 60-acre farm near Nicholasville, Ky, an upgrade from its initial 15-acre farm near Georgetown, Ky. Mareworthy is currently seeking partner farms to launch the Broodmare Retirement Network, a distributed model designed to expand long-term retirement capacity for Thoroughbred broodmares across Central Kentucky.
Kyle Rothfus, co-founder of Mareworthy, said its entity attends the majority of the larger Kentucky sales, with a focus on mares aged 16-18-plus. Mareworthy utilizes social media to share a public listing of broodmares, while actively reminding new owners that support is available after the mare foals and is ready to retire.
"Our goal is to make sure we're keeping them out of kill pens, rather than just pulling from them," Rothfus said.
"Mareworthy was built to address this from a systems perspective. We've spent the past several years working across education, placement, and sanctuary to understand where the gaps actually exist. The network is a direct result of that work."
To ensure analytical accuracy, Rothfus has engaged with numerous industry members, including The Jockey Club, to validate his mission-critical data.
Rothfus highlights that partnering with Mareworthy is an economical way to increase capacity and guarantee safe landings for retired broodmares.
"We see a lot of vacant land in Central Kentucky. We talked to Mike McMahon initially about some ideas he had, along with some others," Rothfus said. "We had a round table at our farm in January, and talked to some industry friends through that, and talked to some people within the industry and area about how we can do this and end up with the model of having a distributed network of farms where we can basically board horses that are in our ownership at those farms."
Rothfus said the expectation for the partner farms would be for them to be able to take around 10 mares.
"They would basically commit to holding a spot for 10 mares that we would own and be a primary client. It would give us the ability to increase capacity without getting a bigger farm."
While the day-to-day care would be the new farm's responsibility, Mareworthy would continue to cover veterinary, farrier, euthanasia, and program oversight costs for all horses.
Beyond the rewards of goodwill, this model offers a path for for-profit farms, otherwise ineligible for independent TAA accreditation, to become approved facilities for TAA-accredited organizations. By earning this designation, partner farms can formally demonstrate their commitment to equine life cycle responsibility within a recognized, professional framework.
Rothfus said Mareworthy's current focus is on the broodmares in Central Kentucky, but the future is not limited to just the Bluegrass State.
"The conversations we've had with The Jockey Club, TAA, and TCA model around building out in Central Kentucky, and build a model that we can replicate. The majority of the horses are in Central Kentucky, so model it here, and then have something we can replicate in New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, California, etc.
"Broodmare retirement has historically been handled on a case-by-case basis," Rothfus said. "What we're building is a system that allows the industry to plan ahead and respond at scale."
In addition to Mareworthy, Rothfus is also the co-founder of its partner farm Horse Husbands Stables.
"Our racing stable, Horse Husbands Stables, will buy mares at the sales, foal them, and then donate the mare when she's retired," he explained. "We have kind of a pipeline we built privately, to say, 'Hey, that's an 18-year-old mare that we do not think should be bred anymore.' We, Horse Husbands Stables, buys that mare, foals her, raises the baby, puts the baby in our program, which we do a lifetime program for our horses as well—no claiming races, no sales, no private sale or public sale.
"We then donate the mare to Mareworthy and cover her expenses until there's either funding on board or she gets adopted. The foal stays with Horse Husbands Stables and becomes a potential race prospect for us. If he doesn't run well, then we do lifetime leads with our horses if we do go to a new home. Horse Husbands Stables' model is that we have a Foal to Forever program."
Foal to Forever is Horse Husband Stables’ program, which consists of one-time sponsorships, allowing fans to follow entire classes of Thoroughbreds from retirement to milestone updates, event access, and even lease priority for retirees.
Farms interested in participating in the Broodmare Retirement Network are encouraged to connect directly through Mareworthy's website.
