MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (July 26, 2008) – When Brian Prichard’s How’s Your Halo finished second in the $400,000 Smile Sprint Handicap (G2) behind the country’s top-ranked sprinter Benny the Bull on July 12 at Calder Race Course, the folks at Joe DiMaggio’s Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, Florida may have not been aware of what an important accomplishment it was. But after local country radio station WKIS 99.9 FM held a “radiothon” benefiting the organization on Friday, July 25, they now know. How’s Your Halo’s owner and trainer Brian Prichard commutes 50 minutes each way every day from his West Palm Beach home to Calder in Miami Gardens where he trains four racehorses. On the Friday drive listening to the radiothon, Prichard heard morning show hosts Terry and Staci Coffey raising money for Joe DiMaggio’s Children’s Hospital. Calder’s miniature horse mascots, Thunder and Lightning, were also at the event as the track was making a $10,000 donation to the hospital.

A father of two young children, Prichard was inspired by the stories he heard on the radio and Calder’s involvement and phoned in at the end of the broadcast to offer a portion of How’s Your Halo’s earnings to Joe DiMaggio’s Children’s Hospital. A stakes horse that runs in races with large purses, How’s Your Halo has already earned $101,548 in 2008. Prichard is donating 1% of what the horse has already earned this year ($1,015) and 1% of his earnings for the remainder of the year.

“This is for the kids,” said Prichard, a retired polo player whose wife Marti is a former pediatric intensive care unit nurse. “We are lucky to have what we have and are blessed with two healthy children (Brandon, 7, and William, 4). This horse has also been a blessing and hopefully he’ll be one for the kids (at Joe DiMaggio’s), too. He has the perfect name.”

Prior to the Smile Sprint, How’s Your Halo finished second in the $100,000 Ponche Handicap on June 14 and was third in an allowance race prior to that in his first start of 2008, both at Calder. The 5-year-old horse has started 26 times in his career that began at Ohio’s Thistledown racetrack on November 19, 2005 for lifetime earnings of $310,048.

Prichard is looking at two races for How’s Your Halo’s next start: the $175,000 Pat O’Brien Breeders’ Cup Handicap (G2) on Aug. 24 at Del Mar (California) and the $250,000 Forego Handicap (G1) on Aug. 30 at Saratoga (New York). How’s Your Halo finished fourth in the Forego last year behind some of the country’s top sprinters.

Now in addition to the rooting by the young Brandon and William Prichard, How’s Your Halo is sure to have a new cheering section, full of the folks from Joe DiMaggio’s Children’s Hospital.

Web sites
Joe DiMaggio’s Children’s Hospital: http://www.jdch.com/
KISS Cares for Kids Radiothon (with link to donate): http://www.wkis.com/index.php?page=929