Cozmic One on to Retired Racehorse Project

What I thought was cool was yesterday Scott Hazelton (I think it was) with TVG was at KHP and talked to both the direction of RRP as well as Isabel De Sousa about both RRP and Cozmic One :slight_smile:

Loved seeing the additional visibility for RRP on TV (even if it was TVG :slight_smile: )

From De Sousa Stables FB group, Cozmic One ended up 5th in Show Jumping out of over 160 competitors!

He may not have followed in his mom’s racing footsteps but a great accomplishment in his own right.

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He was 49th in the Show Hunter class. Showed 2’6" which didn’t seem like any work to him at all in the little clip I saw of one line of fences. Looks like his lead change isn’t quite there yet, but pretty form.

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I watched him on the weekend in the final.

I can see why he failed as a racehorse…he just doesn’t strike me as the athletic type at all.
He’s a lazy jumper and doesn’t really use his body, and he spent 60% of the time cross cantering in the ring.
I know, I know…he’s young and still green. Just doesn’t strike me as the type to go far in the hunter/jumpers. Even in a green horse you look for athleticism and balance… he strikes me as far more hype over his pedigree than his actual ability.
JMO of course…

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Often the more talented youngsters are sloppy over small fences. It’s not really a challenge. He may look better over the bigger jumps and of course with more milage. I think it’s neat that they let such a big name horse go on to another career.

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I watched him in the jumpers and on the jump-off round when he had to show a bit more speed he did much better. Wonder if he’ll pay more attention when the jumps get higher. Anyway, courtesy of his mom he’s a “name” and certainly was a good advertisement for racetrack second careers.

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What else where they going to do with him other than another career? :slight_smile: It wasn’t like he was making a name for himself on the track and without the creds as a race horse, probably wouldn’t have garnered much attention in the shed despite his mama’s name.

I agree with BB that horses with a ‘name’ but lacking the track performance do help give programs like RRP and the options for post race careers some visibility which both the public and the racing industry can take advantage of.

They could have quietly retired him. It’s not like they don’t have the money to let him sit in a field.

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I think he has loads of talent. Need to keep in mind that he’s only been in training approaching 1 year. 2’6 is like a stepping stone to horses. These are schooling jumps. The show was merely a schooling show for him. He is still very much a green bean so not surprising to see his lead changes iffy at this point. She has done a great job with him… He has a lovely balanced canter, cute mover. I see him more as an event horse than a hunter/jumper… I hope they explore that route with him.

The goal is not to bring him to a show and watch him jump a course of 2’6 fences with his knees to his eyeballs. He is out there promoting the OTTB to everyday riders at everyday shows.

Bernardini’s are immensely talented in the Xcountry fields. I suspect that we will see much more talent from him as the jumps get bigger and things become more challenging for him. For now, its obviously that they are concentrating on his greenness, balance, consistency, etc before raising the bar.

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But why would they want to stick him in a field? :confused:

He’s a young, healthy horse who can make a great mount (and friend) for someone. Regardless of the owners’ resources, it would be a waste not to let him have a job.

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I agree, but I think that was in context of the previous comment (What else where they going to do with him other than another career?) Because it’s true, his owners had the disposable income to let him just be a horse in a field full of buddies. It’s nice they chose otherwise, but it wasn’t the only option.

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Most owners don’t have the resources to take all their track “rejects” and toss 'em into a field. I’d also question that even if Cozmic One was tossed into a field, he might be pretty lonely as any potential “buddies” would have been sold on down the line and not tossed out with him. Owners don’t have bottomless checkbooks to support every horse that can’t produce at the track. There might be a few owners that are willing to keep the right horse as a pasture pet (Barbaro comes to mind that the Jacksons would have taken him home in a New York minute if he’d survived his recovery) but not, IMO, a realistic second “career” for the vast majority of TBs.

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I have friends who breed and race horses and have a nice big farm. They’ve been doing it for about 10 years. Whenever a horse of theirs doesn’t pan out as a racehorse, they bring it home and throw it in a field. There are currently 19 young, healthy horses sitting in their field (many of them for years.)

To me, it seems like an enormous waste to “retire” 3 and 4 year old horses who will live for another 20 years doing nothing but eating grass when they could be leading productive lives.

Fwiw, it’s easy to find places for mares to “just be horses” in central KY (I’m assuming the owners wouldn’t have wanted to ship the horse to southern CA) but harder to duplicate that situation for geldings.

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I would imagine that it would be hard for “Big Name Owners” to sell a well know horse to the general horse owning public. No one would want to be associated with the social media criticism should the horse become another Souper Spectacular.

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I think he’s owned jointly by the Mosses and the deSouzas, so I doubt that he will be schlepping off into the sunset to wind up at an auction. I think he’s got all the time in the world to find out what he’s good at and to develop that skill. It was good that so many people got to see him and I believe they held “open stall” parties for everyone to visit him.

I also think having the “power” of a name horse like Cozmic One being Z’s son really helps show that OTTBs can have successful second careers without having to be ‘tossed out to pasture’. There were, IIRC, over 200 OTTBs at the RRP show this last weekend but I suspect the ‘name’ horse was Cozmic One.

The positive ‘advertising’ for OTTBs having second careers is far more valuable than being a pasture pet IMO :slight_smile:

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Me too, but I try to never lose sight of the fact that 95% of the horses on this planet would probably choose door #1 as their preferred option!

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I wasn’t offering an opinion on the economics of owners in general, just noting that context is useful when looking at comments!

This just occurred to me. God knows they have enough money and resources to keep an infinite number of horses happy in a pasture, but think of the publicity for OTTB retraining if they had, for example, had somebody do something with Rachel Alexandra.

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Why? Unless a trained horse is not crippled, or prone to rearing and flipping over backwards (ala Point Given) they should be ridden. Isn’t it Lane’s Farm that has their breeding stallions ridden every day?

Unless she’s crippled, why isn’t RA ridden? Just because she can’t be a broodmare, doesn’t mean she can’t be ridden. Even hacking-out/trail riding. Maybe she is and I just don’t know about it?

Some horses actually LOVE going “walkabout” with a human. Yes they ALL love grazing. But some really do miss that human interaction that might include riding. Some may want to jump, event, do field ‘hunting’ or just hack-out, trail ride or walk around pasture bareback with kids in a halter.

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