Hidden Treasure: Retraining Racehorses

“A prize in every box.” While that phrase refers to the little toy one finds in a box of Cracker Jacks, adopting a former racehorse is not so different: You’re not quite sure what you’ll get, but often the experience is fun and the horse can be a treasure for years to come. For the most part, ex-racehorses are well-trained, intelligent horses which, in the right hands, successfully move on to

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“A prize in every box.” While that phrase refers to the little toy one finds in a box of Cracker Jacks, adopting a former racehorse is not so different: You’re not quite sure what you’ll get, but often the experience is fun and the horse can be a treasure for years to come. For the most part, ex-racehorses are well-trained, intelligent horses which, in the right hands, successfully move on to other disciplines. But it takes effort, sensitivity, patience, and a sense of what kind of work best suits an individual horse’s body and mind to uncover that buried treasure.

Regardless of the breed, the initial handling techniques between coming off the track and going into specialized training consist of similar steps: Down time, farm adjustment, socialization, change of feed, and transitional training. Following is the input and advice from five trainers who’ve worked with Thoroughbreds, Standardbreds, Quarter Horses, Paints, Appaloosas, and Arabians on what it takes to re-tune track horses.

Chill Out

The first step in ex-racehorse transformation is giving the horse plenty of down time. Explains Michele Oren, farm manager and trainer with the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF), “You don’t take a horse from the track and two days later try to ride it. These horses have lots of energy and need turnout time to relax. Once you give a horse time to let down from racetrack horse to pleasure horse, you have a totally different animal

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Written by:

Marcia King is an award-winning freelance writer based in Ohio who specializes in equine, canine, and feline veterinary topics. She’s schooled in hunt seat, dressage, and Western pleasure.

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