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Can an 9 yr old horse race?

Racing
#1

OK I don’t know too much about racing. I’m a hunter jumper trainer and retrain many track horses.

I have this appendix mare that absolutely loves to run and seems really fast. I looked up her tatoo and she had 3 wins 1 1st and 2 and 3md…some smaller tracks then no races.

I think she may have gotten hurt as I see indent along her side near ribcage and along part of hind. Looks like she fell into a fence. The indemts are Right about fence height. She was pastured and didn’t seem like much of anything had been done since racing. Years ago.

I’ve been working with her and shes really sweet but I don’t think shes.going to make a jumper not from lack of talent but her.mindset when its jump time.

I’ve been taking her out for gallops and rides up and down hills for.conditioning and clear up her mind.

She loves it! Shes gotten in pretty good shape and I take her for long gallops. I gallop along a fenced field thats about a mile round. When she comes to the long side lately she really fights me and wants to go and I’m already galloping her pretty fast.

I haven’t let her go all out because its a field.

Can she race at 9 or 10? I know its old for a race horse but I’ve heard of a few that have.

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There’s a farm nearby that has an actual practice track. I’d love to just see what see can do since she loves.it so much.

​​​​​​Is it possible to race her at this age and what’s the best way to give her a test practice run to see if she is indeed fast enough?
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#2

Race course flat track racing? Short answer: no. There is no way I’d take a horse who once raced but hasn’t for year and isn’t race focused and throw them into a race at age 9.

Entering into a sanctioned point-to-point race day’s flat turf race? I’ll be optimistic and suggest: maybe.

#3

my farm has a horse who timber raced till he was 13 or 14, he’s nine months off the track right now. But he had never taken time off more than a few months since he started training at 2. How this hasn’t caught up to him yet, beats me. I don’t think it would be a good idea. I would never want to have a horse race that old

#4

Have you tried eventing or fox hunting her?

#5

Can a 9 year old horse race? Yes

Should a 9 year old horse race? Probably not. It’s one thing if the horse has been racing her whole life. Trying to bring an older horse back to the track after years off is not advisable. Especially if you don’t really know why she stopped racing in the first place. If she was winning and then stopped doing as well, dropped down through the levels, and went to smaller tracks before retiring, she’s most definitely done.
It’s also not like you can just plop her into a race yourself - you’d need a race trainer to get her going again, if you could even find someone to take that on, and it would cost a good bit of money to get to that point.

I agree that she may need a different discipline - eventing or fox hunting are possibilities if you think she’d enjoy running and jumping outside the ring (depends on what exactly is the “mindset” issue, and for eventing she’d still have to jump around stadium and do dressage in addition to XC). But she’d also need endurance, not just the ability to go fast. Maybe she might prefer Western gaming/speed events, or she could be a trail horse for someone who really likes to go.

#6

I don’t know much about QH racing but do they allow appendix to race? Do they offer anything other than the quarter mile drag races? It doesn’t sound like she’d be very appropriate for that.

It sounds like she’d be much happier as an eventer or foxhunter. Not all horses are cut out for arena work.

#7

Theoretically, yes, but while I"m not sure how it would work with QH racing I’m assuming it’s similar–you’d need permission from the stewards, they’d probably want to see posted works and proof the mare was sound and fit. Not so much for her safety, though that’s part of it, but also because a horse who’s not fit and mentally okay with running can cause accidents that put other horses and riders in danger. The fact she’s had an injury bad enough to leave marks means finding a licensed trainer who’d be interested is also going to be an even bigger challenge. She’s old, she sounds like she slid down the ranks and was done for a reason. What seems fast to you doesn’t mean fast in racing terms. Lucky felt incredibly fast to me when I worked him on the oval at the old barn I boarded at. In racing terms he wasn’t HORRIBLE, but not remotely worth the expense of race training at that point.

#8

All racing QHs, pretty much, have Thoroughbred blood (and as the OP says, this mare ran.) It’s possible to get Thoroughbred stallions registered with the AQHA for breeding and the only restriction appears to be you can only breed an Appendix to a full Quarter Horse, not to another Appendix or a Thoroughbred, to get a QH offspring you can register. They used some collected semen from Storm Cat after he was pensioned from live cover TB breeding to breed Quarter Horse mares. His son Stray Cat was a graded QH stakes winner and he has several QH sons standing.

1 Like
#9

Injuries happen at speed, so if the horse is not properly conditioned to begin fast work, the chances of injury increase.

Most fast work is very controlled, the horse is not allowed to run as fast as it can or as far as it can. Riders are given specific instructions wrt distance and speed/time which is dependent on the horse’s level of fitness. And finally, fast work is usually done on a professionally designed and engineered race track. The quality of farm tracks varies, I’ve seen some that are wonderful and some that I would not run a hose across.

And you need to get your trainers license or pay a licensed trainer to enter the horse if you are going to race her.

#10

The short answer is yes, 9 year old horses can race. The oldest horse I ever ran was 13 which boggled my mind at the time but I was listening to the horse both on the track and in the results. There is way more to it than can they race though. You need to look at the practicalities and ethics of it as well. Are there QH tracks near you or would you have to ship a long way? How much money do you have to risk on this endeavor? The chances of you making a single cent over your expenses are as close to zero as a decimal point can be in my opinion. It’s not like she will be running for huge purses at that level.

QH races are extremely short, balls to the wall, flat out sort of things. Galloping for a mile even at a high rate of speed tells you nothing about her ability to be competitive in an all out sprint on a straightaway out of a gate. My vote is enjoy your horse and buy or claim a race horse if you want to get involved in the game.

2 Likes
#11

The short answer to could she physically race is yes but should she race is a totally different question

Rhetorical question as well, no idea where you could race. She’s not a TB and cannot race at Jockey Club controlled meets. She’s apparently not a permanently registered QH either, there’s a pathway to getting an Appendix a permanent QH number, but it’s dependent on earning a minimum number of points by a certain age…she’s way past the deadline. It was 4 and they had to earn an ROM but that was years back.

Youd need to become a licensed trainer or pay one at any recognized track and you really don’t want anything to do with sketchy, under the radar, totally unregulated bush tracks…if they even still exist.

Doesn’t sound like you’ve been working with her that long. Lot of them settle after awhile in a regular program. But it could be awhile…like 6-8 months…before she shows what else she might be good at. She doesn’t know how to do anything else, she’ll figure it out if you get consistent.

#12

You, and we, need more info. What kind of racing do you want her to do? Where are you? Why did they stop racing her? Being as she is appendix, you will be restricted to unsanctioned point-to-points, which often have flat races, or QH races.
Just FYI, the average age of horses in the 2017 Maryland Hunt Cup was 10.27 years. Winner was 9, youngest was 8, oldest was 14. Virginia Gold Cup average age 9.5, youngest 8, oldest 13 winner 10. All told, age should not be the disqualifying factor…

#13

See the OP: the mare is tattooed and raced (presumably in QH races.) Which, really, is kind of a mark against–she sounds like she ran okay, but clearly her connections didn’t consider her worth keeping in training or, more tellingly, keeping her to breed once she was done.

2 Likes
#14

Thanks for all the informative input. I never thought about racing her until recently when shes gotten more and more aggressive with wanting to run and in more .condition.

I’ve owed lots of off track horses and this one is the fastest and really loves to run! I do believe like one of the posters said she was run short distance because lately I’ve let her out some along the long straight side of the field and she’ just wants to go full steam ahead. Shes gotten to the point now where she will actually leap and shake her head to try to take off faster when I hold her back!

I don’t expect to win Any big.purses. it’d be kinda fun just to see a horse I own run, even if it was at the county fair lol

Shes not.going to make a hunter, jumper, evemter, she has great scope she just gets to wound up. She.might enjoy fox hunting but don’t really have too much of that here.

Don’t thing shed make a good barrel horse due to her confirmation. Shes built Like a T.;B

She has good breeding, was thinking about breeding her.

How much would it cost me to just enter her in a small race with trainer and jockey just to see?

I would want to test her 1st of.course to compare her time agaist winning times before I entered her anywhere. I wouldn’t want to put her through a race if she wasn’t in the running. Could I just hire a local jockey to test her at local farm to see if she really has the speed?

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#15

Answer is yes - you can legally race a 9 yr. old as others have said — but, racing entails a lot more than just entering a ‘small’ race just to see, and/or hiring a jockey to test her out. And by ‘entails’ I mean making sure the conditioning of your horse is done correctly. Racing is very strenuous on a horse – they don’t know a race is small and even an unfit horse will give it their all and could possibly break down right out of the gate.

Proper racing conditioning takes time – it’s a process – and is far different than you galloping her along a field fence line and up and down hills.

No way have you experienced true ‘racing’ speed doing what you’re doing :slight_smile: – and so: to suddenly ‘test her out’ at breezing or racing speeds with a jockey at a training track is simply asking for injury to your horse.

And IMO no trainer in their right mind would even entertain the idea of entering your horse in a race ‘just to see’. And no jockey in their right mind would ride a 9 year old, unconditioned horse in a race, nor breeze them at speed before they were ready.

I don’t know how it works in QH racing, but you need to meet certain criteria in TB racing in order to enter races. Condition Book regulations, work-out times – from the gate in certain cases, etc. You can’t just enter a horse in a race. There are rules.

But if you must persue this racing dream (and I assume you have her papers – and that there is not a NO RACE stipulation by former owner) …the first things I would do are:

A. Look at the old racing forms and gain knowledege about all her races. Read the ‘comments’. They can tell you a bit about ‘how’ she negotiated her races. Especially her last few races. (Was she trailing? Did she stop? Was she ‘driving’?, etc.) Better still, get in touch with her former trainer or owner and find out why they stopped racing her. There is always a reason.

B. Find out if your horse was a ‘bleeder’ and was on Lasix.

C. Find out if she still has a viable gate card – or will need to get a new one.

D. Find a good trainer who will stable her at a training farm or track-- and properly condition her for racing.

E. Be prepared to spend a tidy sum of money: day rate for trainer, farrier & vet expenses, shipping expenses, etc…

F. Be prepared to care for a ‘broke down’ horse should something go terribly wrong while she’s in training and/or ever actually races again.

G. Change your mind – stop winding your horse up – let her settle down and ride for pleasure. :slight_smile:

4 Likes
#16

The horse would need at least 2 months of training with a professional trainer before being fit to race. I don’t know what trainers charge in la la land, but in my area it would be roughly $2,500-$3,000 a month. The horse needs to get a gate card and will need published works and the racing secretary would have to decide whether or not to accept the entry. The owner will need to get an owners license and get silks made up and register them. Fees associated with the actual race will be the pony fee, gate fee, jockey fee, lasix fee and maybe a few other small fees.

#17

Back in the day the track would supply you with generic silks if you didn’t have any. I’ve been out of racing for too long now – so I don’t know if tracks still do that.

#18

You often see horses racing in “house silks” at Saratoga for owners who haven’t had time to get their silks registered in NY.

OP, please read danacat’s post #15 again before considering going forward with the idea of racing your mare.

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