From racing to rescue Pierce student helps save the underdogs

found the Thoroughbred Education Foundation in a magazine, reached out to them and offered to volunteer.

Alpha Gamma Sigma Club

Earning their success

Vanessa Arrendondo Roundup Reporter

the intention to provide “intellectual stimulus” and incentive for student academic achievement.

For most, watching a film rarely has leaves a long term impact on their lives. Yet for Tracy Wachbrit, one film did just that.

After watching the film Seabiscuit for the first time, she gained a new found interest in racehorses that became a part of her life.

Tracy Wachbrit, Pre-Veterinary Science Major at Pierce college and Volunteer Director at Thoroughbred Education Foundation, not only assists in Thoroughbred rehabilitation, but also in spreading awareness of its prevention program to help these horses.

“I wanted to work on the track to see if this was what I wanted to do.

So I went to the track as a teenager and they pushed me away. They said I needed to know somebody in the business if I wanted to work there, and I didn’t know anyone,” Wachbrit said.

“I ended up going on vacation to Kentucky to meet somebody to get a job out here, but after a week I was hooked.”

Eventually Wachbrit went to North American Racing Academy in Kentucky where she enrolled in a training program for jockeys and horsemen, wishing to become a racehorse trainer.

Yet after being told multiple times to pursue being a veterinarian, she decided to give it a chance and enrolled in the pre-veterinary program at Pierce, ultimately aiming to become a public health vet.

While at Pierce, Wachbrit was also working at a racetrack where she ended up injuring her knee and had to retire from the industry. Missing the horses after a few months, she

“Its a confusing program for people when they first hear about it, because when you think about it, it sounds like a rescue. And in all effects and purposes it is, we just mostly rescue by prevention,” Wachbrit said.

Ken Lian and Sheryl Fulop, founders of the Thoroughbred Education Foundation, created this non-profit organization as they noticed the negative changes in the horseracing industry over the years. Their goal is to educate and make people aware of the issues that are occurring with the horses, and how to prevent them in order to reduce the amount that need to be rescued.

“Tracy has played a big role in bringing students down and really teaching them our core solution based measures. From moving away from the rescue paradine as the solution, to a more realistic one,” Ken Lian veterinarian and Founder of Thoroughbred Education Foundation.

Many young horses lives are being cut short due to poor treatment and care as a result of horse races.

Racehorses tend to not receive the proper training and are taught at a very young age solely to race.

They are kept in their pens for a majority of their lives, treated poorly by owners and when they become injured or “useless” they end at auctions where they meet their fate.

Currently, there are no functioning horse slaughterhouses in the United States due to a ban that removed funds for federal inspections of facilities that are required for slaughterhouses to operate.

Yet horse slaughter still remains a problem. As a result of the ban, horses are being bought off at auctions for little to nothing, then exported and slaughtered in neighboring countries.

“We are not trying to get rid of horse racing, but we are trying to change it for the better,” Wachbrit said.

“We teach them different industries and not just to run around a track so when they retire they can be used for more than just racing. Also, at our barn they see a lot of activity so they are calm and not spooked like other horses when they finally arrive on a track.”

In an institution with a general reputation for lesser achievement, Pierce College students group together in their Alpha Gamma Sigma Honors Society chapter and support each other’s high academic endeavors while giving back to the community.

Alpha Gamma Sigma is the honors society of the California Community College District.

Founded in 1926 at Fullerton College, the society exists nearly every California Community College.

The society was founded with

“If you want to meet like minded individuals this is the place to be,” Moises Valero, who joined just this semester, said.

“I know many people on campus who don’t care about school, they are coasting through C’s. We support each other here. We talk about our goals and keep working towards them.”

Students who join will receive transcript recognition, which is useful when applying to colleges and universities.

Phi Theta Kappa Club restarts

Hard work pays off

Santiago Svidler Roundup Reporter

Honor society Phi Theta Kappa restarts its efforts to provide scholarships for students by working with the community and the school to raise money for its club members.

Phi Theta Kappa was put on hold for a few years and hasn’t had any active members since 2010, until Professor Kathy Oborn and club president Martha Johnson decided to bring the club back this year.

“It was a different motivating experience and here we are,” Director of Communications Jerell Johnson said.

With the club back in motion,

Theta Kappa has been working towards maintaining its presence on campus by adding more job within the club such as director of communications, president and vice president as well as social media.

“Right now we are doing bigger things, we are going out to the community and making a bigger presence for Theta Kappa,” J. Jonhson said.

Phi Theta Kappa is an international honor society that recognizes students with a GPA of 3.5 or higher and provides scholarships among two-year college students.

Pierce College Theater’s fall production brought enough debauchery for the whole school on opening night. “Cabaret,” a musical set in Nazi Germany with music written by Broadway legends John Kander and Fred Ebb, is a classic that reminds us there’s no escaping a desire to escape.

The production’s pinpoint casting and Gene Putnam’s fearless direction light up the campus. It’s both a provoking and transporting experience, planting the fourth wall well beyond Pierce’s Performing Arts Center.

Quinn Knox’s performance as Fritzie, the master of ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub, is shining.

Shirtless and glowing, he leads the club’s scantily clad troupe of dancers and waiters through openended escapades of dry humping, suggested cunnilingus and ménages à trois. His infectious smile is painted on and serves as a motif of unwavering self-indulgence and morphs moods as the context darkens.

Dualities unfold as the story sings along, and the lighting, coordinated by Ellie Rabinowitz, drives the serenade with velvety hues that smother the stage and a blinding light from a locomotive in the distance.

Michael Beck, who plays a globe-trotting American writer with wandering aspirations, hops on a train to Germany hoping to find enough inspiration to write his novel. Beneath the gargantuan Scott Aaronson, who plays an amiable businessman that’s outed as a fearsome Nazi go-fer, Beck fights, after he’s duped by the Nazi’s nonchalance, for the stage and his conscience.

Beck’s character, Cliff Bradshaw, is leached by a cokesnorting harlot, the seedy club’s spotlight star played by tornadoon-a-stage Michelle Hallbauer. Her glitz is emphatic. She mentions her uncounted abortions in passing. Her listless binges swing from home to home. Cliff tries to make a wife of her.

Matt DeHaven plays an upbeat, sing-song Jewish widower who pines after Beck’s landlord played by Katie Watts-Whitaker. Their onstage chemistry is heartwarming.

DeHaven slips seamlessly into the lively role, and Watts-Whitaker illuminates a struggle between her steadfast reluctance and yearning to have someone with whom to share her room.

The band is a key feature in the production and its conductor, Pierce music professor and Conductor of the San Fernando Valley Symphony Orchestra James Domine, brings life to the music and the stage.

With finals looming over the stressed out shoulders of Pierce’s students and staff, the Theater’s “Cabaret” offers a solid and welcome opportunity to trade a few

General Admission

$20

12 - Dec. 14 2 p.m. & 8 p.m.

Performing Arts Complex 6201 Winnetka Avenue, Woodland Hills, CA

Find tickets at: brownpapertickets.com or by phone - (818) 719 - 6488 hours of grinding into textbooks for risqué hilarity and songs audience members’ will still be singing on the way home.

All but two remaining showtimes are sold out. To get tickets for Friday’s showing at 8

EXPECT p.m. or Saturday’s at 2 p.m, call 818-719-6488. Tickets are $15 for students and seniors and $20 for general admission.

Winter