Galerio needed a friend. Turns out, he had a bunch of them.

“I am just amazed at the network of people that pulled together so that we could get this horse back,” Bird Mobberley said. “It’s so heartwarming, because all you hear is the horror stories.”

The eight-year-old Maryland-bred Jump Start gelding reached the end of his career November 1. That’s when Mobberley and her partner Grady Griffin – Bird and Grady LLC, they race as – with assists from Brett Brinkman, Nicole Navarro, and Bev Strauss, claimed Galerio for the princely sum of $5,000.

It marked the end of Galerio’s 47-race, 14-win, $687,000 career. He’ll get some time now just to be a horse at Dallas and Donna Keen’s Remember Me Rescue in Burleson, TX.

“Grady and I, we just couldn’t stand seeing this horse running for the all-time low of $5,000 after he had done so much for us,” Mobberley noted.

In fact, he did a lot for a lot of people.

All told, he passed through seven barns in his career: Kevin Boniface, Claudio Gonzalez, Dale Bennett, Jamie Ness, John Salzman, Jr., Lynn Cash, and Jonas Gibson. And for just about all of them, he was a productive racehorse.

It was the fourth of those, John Salzman, Jr., who trained for Bird and Grady.

“John said, you know, ‘This horse runs for everybody. He shows up every time,’” Mobberley remembered. “’So, let’s take him and see if he’ll run for us, too.’”

Run he did. They claimed the then-five-year-old for $50,000 in November 2021. He made a half-dozen starts in their colors, winning the 2022 John B. Campbell Stakes and finishing third in a couple of other stakes.

“He made dreams come true,” Mobberley said.

And then he was gone, Cash grabbing him for $50,000 a couple of months later. He was claimed again in August 2023, this time for $40,000, and that’s when the downward spiral began.

Claimed that day by trainer Jonathan Maldonado for Flurry Racing Stables LLC, he didn’t show up in the entries again until four months later, now with trainer Jonas Gibson at Oaklawn Park and entered for a claiming tag of just $12,500. He finished second, beaten just a head, and was claimed – but the claim was voided.

He showed up four months later for $10,000, won, and was claimed – and again the claim was voided. Then seven months later for $8,000, now at Louisiana Downs, another win but this time no claim.

At that point, Mobberley and Griffin had decided to claim the horse. But how? They didn’t have a trainer in Louisiana.

But Bev Strauss, a friend of theirs, a trainer in her own right, and the co-founder of Mid-Atlantic Horse Rescue, knew just whom to call: Brett Brinkman, the trainer of the late Grade 1 winner Alva Starr, whom she knew because he has stabled at Delaware Park in recent summers and is stabled in the winter at Delta Downs.

“It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment kind of deal,” Brinkman said. “A lot of times, it’s hard to get money moved around and get everything in place. But I trust Beverly [Strauss], and those guys, I spoke with them, and they sounded very up and up.”

So, when Galerio showed up for a nickel, it was Brinkman who fronted the cash, trusting Mobberley and Griffin to repay him, and who volunteered to send the veteran to his farm while determining the next move.

“I’m a lifelong horseman, and I never get in the way of trying to the right thing for them, in that sense,” he said. “It was just easier to do it that way and make it all work.”

Watching the race, Mobberley said she and Griffin were on pins and needles.

“We were like, ‘Oh, gosh boy, just please take care of yourself. Make the course, buddy,’” she remembered.

He did better than that: he won again, making it three straight victories to close his career.

“He was just a class act,” Brinkman said.

“And then Brett called right after the race and said that we got him, that there were no other claims in for him,” Mobberley recalled. “And he took the horse to his farm the next day, I believe.”

The connection to Remember Me came through Brinkman’s assistant Nicole Navarro, who, the trainer says, in addition to her work with racers is “really big into taking these off-track thoroughbred horses and finding them… jobs… and does a really good job about matching horses up with people.”

“Absolutely awesome,” is how Mobberley describes Navarro.

“She took care of him,” she added. “She put us together with [Remember Me], and he’s doing great.”

Galerio’s racing journey spanned six seasons. It took him to nine different tracks in seven states. It saw him race in seven different barns, make 47 starts, and through it all, finish in the money 40 times.

“That day he won the Campbell, that was incredible,” Mobberley said. “For him to be running for $5,000 like that, we couldn’t live with ourselves. We owe him.”

A debt that’s now, thanks in part to the kindness of strangers, repaid.

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