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Article published on Wednesday September 28, 2016 in the Thoroughbred Daily News

TDN Q&A: Jimmy Bell

For the past two years, Jimmy Bell has been the President of the Board of Directors of the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, the non-profit organization which accredits, inspects and awards grants to approved aftercare organizations. As his two-year term comes to an end, he sat down with the TDN’s Sue Finley to talk about what he’s learned, and where the industry needs to be in terms of aftercare.

SF: Why did you agree to take this on?

JB: Before the TAA, I think I was a typical person in the industry regarding my thoughts on aftercare, and I think my path represents what the TAA has come to be about. It’s about awareness, and once you become more in tune to it, I think we would all agree that having been in this industry all of our lives, we can recognize some shortcomings and some things that have been overlooked and which were very deficient. There is no question that the word `aftercare’ didn’t come into the nomenclature until three, four, five years ago. Certain events certainly brought some attention to it, but I think it was a realization of how little we as an industry were doing and how much there was to be done.

That’s one answer. The other is that these horses deserve it. Period. It’s the right thing to do and there’s no grey area to it. It’s a needed and just cause.

Read more here: http://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/tdn-qa-jimmy-bell/