But isn’t this true of any horse one buys? Whether its directly from a breeder (say a yearling or 2 year old), a well known barn/trainer (for a green horse all the way to a schoolmaster) or from anywhere else? Even with a $1,300 PPE that’s not going to tell you everything in the horse’s past or future life (though I’d agree that OTTBs do have a unique set of potential injuries/issues). I don’t see this as being an issue just with OTTBs - but maybe I’m wrong. You’re honestly not going to know the full story of any horse, unless you were present from it’s birth, through all its levels of training and everything inbetween. Either that or you have a crystal ball.
And while there is certainly more risk involved in buying something you’ve only seen in a picture/video, one you haven’t actually ridden, have no idea if you’ll bond/gel as a team, vs buying a horse you’ve leased/ridden for a year or one you’re familiar with locally - you still have no idea what’s going to happen one month from purchase in any of those scenarios. I guess what I’m contemplating is the added risk worth it or not. Right now I don’t have an answer to that - which is one reason I started this thread in the first place. And I do appreciate your detailed response. Lots of good info.
Yes and no… In general with horse-shopping, you are looking at the finished product - in other words if you’re shopping for a 3’6" jumper you’re going to look at horses already jumping 3’6"… Same goes for dressage; want a1st level horse, you’re going to test and ride a 1st level horse. Want a BN packer, you buy a horse with extensive mileage at USEA BN/N shows… You get to show up, ride the horse, get a feel of their temperament, see how they are handled, and have a much more intimate process with them.
But that’s not the case with OTTBs, who are being purchased for different disciplines, and are more of a “prospect” vs a “proven product”. You don’t get to ride them, you don’t get to work them, or get a feel of how you click under-saddle… and that kind of eye is invaluable. You gotta be able to separate the wheat from the chaff with very limited interaction and information to go off of.
To me it’s much more like buying a foal/yearling, than buying a horse already trained in the discipline you want to do… because you have no idea if the yearling has potential for the discipline you want… just a hope and a prayer.
A lot of it boils down to how well you can see potential in a prospect, how well you understand lamenesses and conformational limitation, and how lucky you are.
I think it’s much more of a gamble, and not the same as buying a horse that is already trained. You have to untrain a lot of learned behaviors, and you also have to deal with the invariable green moments - not a lot of people can do that, and do it constructively in a way that keeps the entire process smooth…
For the record I don’t think OP shouldn’t get an OTTB. They seem knowledgable about horses. But I don’t think they should jump into it without having someone who is experienced with OTTBs helping them along the way.
Totally agree! And will add: these horses are doing something extraordinarily taxing on their bodies, living in an environment that is usually very hard on their minds. Knowing how to see through that is important.
The track environment is so different. I cringe thinking about longeing a horse–at the CANTER–on the backside. Talk about a wreck waiting to happen. :no:
To build on the OP, there are a handful of COTHers (several of which who have already contributed) who are respected for having a great eye for second career potential.
As a dressage rider I spend hours upon hours watching youtube videos, sitting ringside at shows, watching clinics, and absorbing everything I can from the experts around me. My sport is pretty conducive to watching horses perform in their chosen sport for hours at a time, and it has still been a very long process of developing what I would call a modest “eye” for potential.
For those who have a better than average odds of pulling a nice second-career OTTB, how did you develop your eye? Of course it was years and years of experience, but what did that experience look like?
With limited opportunities to watch the horse move outside of breezing or jogging in hand, who did you look to as you were learning? Was it a track trainer or someone in your chosen sport who stood next to you decades ago and said “just tracky” versus “that looks like a specific joint, I’m walking”?
Did you have prior experience exercise riding or something that gave you extra insight into the industry?
Why was being on the backside of a track value?
What were you doing on the backside of a track that helped you personally identify what conformational or dispositional traits would translate well into a second career?
Who were the people who taught you the most?
Were you there specifically learning how to find second career OTTBS?
You don’t have to answer of course but that’s what I was asking.
The more you see these horses, the more you SEE them. I was on the backside every weekend during live racing season for two years taking listings and building relationships with trainers. You see them every week, you help get them sold, and you often hear about them in their new careers. It’s incredibly helpful to not only understand their lives on the track but also translate between what you see there vs what you see of them once they’ve gone on to something else.
I bought my guy site unseen off a CANTER IL trainer listing three years ago. I was hoping to do the RRP with him as a jumper prospect. I ran across his ad online and loved his expression. He only had walk videos posted (probably because he was being a handful), but I called and spoke to the contact who happened to be the trainer’s wife. She did manage to get me a few second video clip in the shedrow jogging with the exercise jockey before I finalized buying him. I also found some of his win videos from the year or two prior so got an idea of how he moved. I lined up a PPE with one of the track vets. I had planned to do basic films, but the vet did not think it was necessary based on the initial PPE with flexions so I went with that. I did have some issues lining up shipping as it was an odd route, but that was really my biggest hurdle in the entire deal.
I had owned and ridden babies and green sale horses for a number of years, so I was comfortable with the idea of being able to ride whatever showed up on my doorstep. That being said, this is not an approach to buying that I would advise to many people. My guy is great fun, but even three years off the track he is a lot of horse that lives to work and is happiest in a structured training program. He is certainly the athlete I thought I saw even in his walk videos.
OP I don’t think anyone thinks you’re crazy or incapable…I think we’re probably just sensitive to making sure anyone asking questions about taking horses directly off the backside are prepped and have the resources to adequately deal with the challenges and don’t wind up hurting themselves or the race trainer. Because you’d be surprised the number of people who have posted on COTH who are soooo intrigued that they can just go to the backside of a racetrack and buy a horse for $500, what a bargain for little Suzy who looooves horses so much! Oh yeah. Or the teenager who thinks they can get a cheap OTTB and make a 3-star eventer in a year, when the kid hasn’t jumped over Novice. Those are fun too. So we get a lot of those and tend to err on the side of caution with advice. Clearly, having read your story you seem experienced and perfectly capable of taking a horse off the track and schooling it up, and certainly knowledgeable enough to ask for help if you need it. So no worries there.
But the overall point is if you’re not comfortable or experienced on the backside of a racetrack but insist on going that route, bring someone with you who is. It’s not that you can’t get one direct off the backside (I really love that part of the story with my late OTTB), just make sure you’re prepared for the type of decision making you may be dealing with - short time frame, limited info, higher than average risk. And asking the questions you’ve asked is the first step, and that is good. I still highly recommend linking up with someone with a more experienced eye for the backside just to help, at the very least to bounce ideas off of in the moment (or be the voice of reason).
Or, if you want one fresh off the track to work with yourself, but don’t necessarily want to deal with the track hassle, getting one from a reseller or restarting program is just as good. Benchmark, as I previously mentioned, is one program that often has horses very fresh off the track and several of them to view and try in a normal farm setting, same with New Vocations/Re-Run/MMSC/Mid-Atlantic, etc. Same product, just more convenient and usually comes with more info, especially if the horse has been with the program for a few weeks/months.
Whenever you start on this journey, good luck and have fun, it’s the ride of a lifetime.
Thanks! I just thought it was important to distance myself from “those” posters. And I could have done much better at explaining myself at the get-go. I shall try to refrain from making new topics in the middle of the night. LOL
And your advise sounds like good common sense to me. I appreciate the time you’ve spent on this topic.
I found that the more time I spent on the backside (photographing for CANTER listings, networking with trainers and track officials, etc), the more I started to see the horses more objectively. I learned how they were handled, what their routines were like, how different barns managed different things.
The more I got to know the trainers, the more I learned who I’d buy from and who I wouldn’t.
I learned how to better interpret horse’s behavior and attitude at the track, and see past shiny coats and bling since sometimes those were the horses getting chemical help and whatnot.
The more time I spent there photographing horses, the more I learned how to read photographs, since track photographs can be really horrible.
And the more time I spent with CANTER, the more I saw many horses actually come off the track and start working, so I got to see how horses looked at the track, through their transition, and what they did well afterwards.
Now, I’m not a professional, but that experience has made me very confident about buying in the future for me. I wouldn’t try to buy for someone who wants to buy a future FEI eventer, LOL. But having seen many horses go through the listings and what they do after, and seeing the horses that came into our retraining program and riding, I have a set of criteria for me - brain, key conformational issues related to soundness, trainers I trust, etc.
Well, for me – the first thing you learn once you work or volunteer on the backside is who has a program that aligns with your personal “morals”, and who doesn’t. I use “morals” in quotes because there’s a big stigma there about all race horse trainers being bad or immoral – that is WRONG – but it is not without a kernel of truth, either. Horse people (can) suck in every discipline, period. There’s good and bad eggs everywhere.
There are trainers who might push a horse that has been protecting itself, and those who won’t - that kind of thing. Trainers who pick up the low claimers and “just try to get one more run out of him”, who tend to have a string of tough but tired runners, and trainers who are a family operation who have had Dobbin since the day he set foot on this earth, carefully conditioned him, spared no expense, and knows every single detail about him…
and then there are the trainers in between those two extremes, who are the meat of the industry IMHO.
There’s trainers that have a specific “type” - for instance one trainer at Finger Lakes always has the big sporthorse type horses and is always worth a look - he keeps them in great condition too… so I know if he has a horse, it is not a nag.
You also learn a lot about who might have a horse that “Really Needs To Go” and what that really means - sometimes not very pretty, so you get a feel for what horses are safe while being listed, and what ones you might want to keep an eye out for at local auctions or pens…
Then there’s the training and the amount of care that goes into them: some shed-rows I would buy a horse from sight unseen, because I know the quality of all of the horses is top-notch, and the trainer won’t run a sore horse. Meaning if they told me “he’s sound, just needs a new job” I know that means he is sound for sport pursuits, period.
Others I might know every horse in that shedrow is there for a reason, cheap, and being nursed along chemically… and when they say “he’s sound, just needs a new job” I know that means he’s only sound if he’s standing still and “needs a new job” means he’s going to be at an auction by the end of the meet if someone doesn’t pick him up.
And… people talk… “Hey, what’s going on with Dobbin?” “Oh, he has a sore knee…” so you hear plenty of gossip through the grapevine…
You also get a feel for reading a horse. It’s a hard job for them. I won’t lie, it’s one that makes a lot of them unhappy even in great care, because they work very hard, are constantly monitored, bandaged, cared for, busy, etc - some really get sour. Some love it. I generally can look past the sourness, because I’ve seen how many of them are much less defensive once not in that kind of environment. I tended to tune out some of the behavioral shenanigans, but look at them and study how they study their people.
Then looking at how they walk, stand – are they walking tight through the back, or loose and swinging? when they stand are their legs entirely under them (backsore?), when they are turned around are the hocks snappy or quick to turn? How do they stand and hold their neck, are they always resting that foot? You’ll see a lot of grooms handwalk their horses in the shed-row or walked on the walker…so you see them out and about and get to see the horse move then too.
Then there’s the minutia, stuff that doesn’t happen much in sport-horse world - like seeing an osselet, recognizing a swollen knee, knowing what a sore shoulder looks like… or being able to “read” what those bandage wraps mean - some stables had different rituals for wrapping, so when you saw bandages you might know they were worried about a hot knee or leg… I mean most shed-rows bandage so it’s not always a red flag, but sometimes a horse would be in a different routine so you’d know something was found or up.
You learn a lot about pedigrees there too; especially the lower stakes tracks, where a lot of the horses there are sired by the same regional sires, or came from the same dam and ended up in the same shedrow - so you get a handle of knowing the family, their disposition/temperament, etc… and of course, the exercise riders will tell you a thing or two about what they think of XYZ’s horses, too… some of them will “fight” over specific horses sired by sires they love, etc. Others will tell you they wouldn’t touch XYZ for XYZ reasons… they get to see a lot of horses and generally have plenty to say about who they like.
As a volunteer you get to see a lot of these horses presented and recognize the similarities - for instance, when I was volunteering Freud was really big; I came to expect seeing a big, blingy horse with a certain eye, and interested-in-people disposition. Sometimes fractious but I expect that has more to do with the keep than the temperament… or Hook N Ladder, who tended to have cute little bay packages that always caught my eye…
Thanks @WildLittleWren . I’ve been this way since I was young - to the point of annoying people I ask so many questions. Just ask my vet! :lol:
All the detailed info that @beowulf and @caffeinated provided above is great. Makes more sense to me now. and something I can relate to. Each rider that’s been around for a while has his/her wheelhouse of experience, knowledge, and talents and that doesn’t always translate cross-discipline. I may have underestimated that.
While I think I have a fairly good eye for a show hunter that IS a show hunter (whether green or made), that does not necessarily mean that I could “see” that potential in a racehorse.
So my question is, do any of you ever find OTTB horses for others? LOL Ya’ll are so experienced, maybe someday I could throw some business your way, since you obviously know exactly what you’re doing! Just kidding of course. But honestly, are there dedicated people out there that this is all they do - find OTTB horses for other disciplines for clients? Just curios.
I don’t, and wouldn’t trust myself to. I think my wheelhouse in finding horses at the track would be the “likely to be a good ammy horse with a forgiving nature who will do OK in lower level stuff” since that’s what I personally need and always looked for.
It might be worth talking to jleegriffith (Benchmark Sporthorses: http://www.benchmarksporthorses.com/) about her process. She’s quite good at spotting athletic types with good potential as sporthorses. She tends to look more for eventing types but as far as someone who knows what she’s looking for at the track, she’s proven very good at it.
@beowulf thank you. I know that took a long time to write out but I sincerely appreciate it. As someone who has never stepped foot on the backside, it was challenging to understand what things people were seeing that influenced decisions. While I don’t know if I’ll have an opportunity to personally use this information on a OTTB, I see a ton of takeaways of lessons that can be used over multi-day regional shows or clinics. Watching how trainers and riders speak about current horses, issues that pop up, etc. can provide great insight in the event a horse from that same environment becomes available down the road.
That Geoffrey horse in her sales page has a really lovely canter. I don’t know anything about buying off the track, so I would be inclined to look at ones already restarted like that one.
My two cents, and I’m sure I’m going to get eviscerated for this by the Tb lovers - if you are an older rider, getting back into riding, and can only afford financially or time wise to have one horse - close the CANTER listings and move on.
a guarantee with a horse coming off the track is that it will need downtime, it will need vet support, and you will have no idea what the horse will be like once it is off the backside. Some do well and some really do not. The money you save with your “diamond in the rough” will be spent on vet, shoes, saddles, and hours and hours of time with a trainer.
buy something that is doing the job you want it to do right now, from an owner or trainer who can give you at least some history of what the horse is like as a riding horse.
theres an awful lot of threads posted by people who can only have one and their diamond in the rough is currently crippled, again, or has feet issues, again, or has mental issues, again. It’s very easy to get sucked into the romance of retraining but I really do not think it is a good fit for the one-horse-owning re-rider.
And I could have done much better at explaining myself at the get-go. I shall try to refrain from making new topics in the middle of the night. LOL
