Saving Sammy: Beloved horse returns to the races after more than a decade

Jayson Baxter, producer and co-host of CTV News at 5, shares the personal story of Saving Sammy, his family’s beloved racehorse.

It’s been almost three years since “Samspace,” my father Denny Baxter’s former racehorse, came back into our lives.

The 18-year-old Standardbred has healed from his many traumas and looks nothing like the dehydrated and demoralized animal we saw in photos when we found out he was still alive in December 2019.

The New Jersey-based non-profit Standardbred Retirement Foundation discovered our Sammy in a Pennsylvania kill pen.

Fifteen minutes after dad received the stunning phone call from SRF, my wife and I purchased him from the farmer who operates the kill pen. If we hadn’t, Sammy would have been shipped to Mexico or Canada for slaughter within days.

It still breaks my heart, thinking of the fate awaiting the other horses in that horrible place.

Sammy is seen at a Pennsylvania kill pen. "He was on death row," Denny Baxter said. (Photo: Standardbred Retirement Foundation)

The efforts to bring Sammy home to Nova Scotia, and to the safety of Serenity Acres in Ardoise, was documented in “Saving Sammy,” a five-part series CTV Atlantic first aired in May 2021.

This new series stems from an invitation my father received last summer during Old Home Week at Red Shores Raceway in Charlottetown. It was my parents’ first trip to Prince Edward Island since the COVID-19 pandemic, and the “Saving Sammy” series aired.

The PEI Harness Racing Industry Association, with the enthusiastic blessing of Red Shores Raceway, asked if the old duo would come back to the track for the first time since 2008, when Samspace was one of the fastest racehorses in the Maritimes.

Sammy and dad racing in Charlottetown, 2008. "Man, when he found his legs did he become a race horse," he said. (Photo: Jayson Baxter)

They wanted to name a race in Sammy and dad’s honour during the Atlantic Breeders Crown championship weekend in October and hoped dad and Sam would introduce or “parade” the entries.

My father said “yes” immediately. However, I had some questions before we pulled Sammy from his new life at Serenity Acres, where he’s the leader of the Serenity Acres herd, and plays a key role in owner Kristy Falconer’s Equine Assisted Learning workshops -- a type of horse-based therapy.

Was Sammy physically fit enough for the demands of travel and light training?

Would it upset the balance of the herd?

Would it affect Kristy’s ability to offer EAL to those in need?

We get those answers in Part 1 of “Saving Sammy: Return to the Races.”

I hope you enjoy it half as much as dad did.

Thank you,

Jayson