Danny MeleIn midsummer, Charlestown Racetrack groom Danny Mele was on his way home at 3:00 a.m. when he saw smoke coming from the backstretch. Danny, a groom, rode his bicycle through the stable gate, yelling at the guard to call 911. Failing initially to locate the smoke, he rode his bike through the barn area. Finally, at Barn Eight - a wooden barn that housed 64 thoroughbreds - he spotted a burning stall fan. It had set the bedding on fire. Tis Diamond Time, a five-year-old mare who had raced that evening and was standing on fresh straw, was badly burned.

“I ripped the fan out and kicked open the metal screen,” said Danny. “Most of the bedding had been burned and the walls were starting to catch on fire.”

Danny doused the fire with two buckets of water, but it continued to spread. With no workers permitted to stay on the backstretch, he was alone. Danny saw the flames were starting to ignite the bedding in the next stall; the mare was down, and he couldn’t get her up. He ran from the stall and called 911. A pair of headlights appeared and trainer Rachel Pitt and blacksmith Bryan Smith emerged from an auto. The two were returning from Mountaineer Park where they had raced a horse that evening.

Rachel grabbed more water buckets. Brian got a hose on the fire. Danny removed the filly from the stall next door where the bedding was burning, and put the horse in an empty stall in his barn. When the fire trucks arrived minutes later, the fire was nearly out.

Officials summoned a veterinarian and the injured mare’s owner, Lewis Close, who had bred and raised her on his farm and trained her to three victories. The vet had to drive a long distance and nearly an hour later she arrived to euthanize the badly burned horse. The three had stayed with the mare the entire time and Danny said at one point he cradled her head in his lap.

“The sight brought me to tears,” said Close. “That was a terrible thing for them to have to deal with and I know it affected them all. But if they hadn’t been so brave I think the entire barn would have gone up. There’s no doubt the fire would have spread and no one would have seen it until flames came out the roof. Those three are true heroes.”

Alvin Beau Smith IIIJust after evening feeding in July, workers at Alvin Smith Jr’s racing Quarter Horse farm near Vinton, LA saw smoke boiling out of the training barn’s office. The worker screamed for and the owner’s son Beau Smith, 19, ran to the scene. Other followed and despite their efforts, the fire in the metal barn quickly spread to the bedding and wooden stall partitions. Smith along with Todd Malley, Larry Higgs and Jason Inabinett started leading panicked horses out of their stalls.

In minutes the barn was engulfed with flames. Two loose horses ran head on into each other in the shed row, killing both. In the dense smoke, another ran into a steel beam, killing it. Inabinett was leading a panicked horse who reared and bolted, sending him into the hot metal. It burned his shoulder so badly he required treatment at a local hospital. Several loose horses ran through fences. Others ran back into stalls. As the horses nickered and whined, the four workers crawled along the shedrow beneath the smoke, opening stall doors and shooing the horses out.

After 20 minutes, the fire department arrived and began hosing down the raging fire. Beau ignored warnings and made his way back into the flames, determined to rescue Six Figure Fortune, a three year old colt who had won several races.

“He was laying down and hollowing,” said Smith. “There was fire everywhere. I never thought I’d see anything that bad. I had to drag him up and drag him out. I thought I’d never get out of the barn. Three minutes after I got out, everything went silent.”

In all, 21 of the barn’s 40 horses died. However, the four saved the lives of 19 others. The owner and his wife, Kelli, were at a horse sale when they were told of the fire. They quickly drove back to the farm. Kelli, so distraught at the sight, collapsed.

“They were more than just horses to us,” said Beau Smith. “They were like a good friend or a brother or sister to me.”

A fundraiser produced $27,000 and today the family is picking up the pieces of their lives. Sadly, while the burned horses were recovering, Hurricane Gustav forced the family and horses to evacuate to Shreveport, in Northern Louisiana. Most of the horses were owned by clients and many were insured. However, the Smith’s lost all their tack, several horses of their own and their sole training barn.

All seven workers who represent two nominations receive all expense paid trips to the 2008 Breeders Cup World Championships courtesy of Daily Racing Form and will be honored at the White Horse Heroes Luncheon on October 23 at Santa Anita, where this year’s winner of the White Horse Award presented by Taylor Made will be announced.

The winner is elected by member of the White Horse Fellowship of major donors and receives a special white bronze White Horse Statue and a $5,000 prize. The three runner-ups earn $1,000 each courtesy of Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover’s Soul and all receive special gifts and prizes.

Tickets to the event can be purchased online at www.racetrackchaplaincy.org under “partners, donations.”