Glad to hear she’s back home. Had been wondering why we hadn’t been hearing many updates on FB.
P.
[QUOTE=vineyridge;8903989]
If she was lame, did the trainer even know? Would she have continued to charge you day rate for a lame, unstarted, still in training horse? I find that she kept a horse with soundness issues without consulting you very strange and disturbing.
It’s a good thing you got her back when you did instead after she had been broken.[/QUOTE]
I want to say “Oh no she wouldn’t do that” but in point of fact when I told her via text that the mare is 1) lame and 2) has shins she didn’t know and was surprised. Her response was that they had jogged her Tuesday and Wednesday and the rider had not reported any soundness issues. I did express to the trainer that it can be harder to feel a lameness like this. That while not insulting her rider I too had issues at the track feeling a minor lameness when jogging in two point on a horse who’s neck was bowed/overflexed out of habit. She’s not very lame, so I wouldn’t totally fault them for not seeing it under tack. See video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEr97qYWX2w
All this said I was showing John her shin reactions last night because this is new to him. Sure enough just ‘tapping’ with all four finger onto the shin bone does elicit a response on the right front and mild irritation with me on the left front. John understood once he saw it. (Never realized how hard explaining a shin was)
I am glad I took her home. She’s enjoying turnout and Gin and Petey take turns just staring at her longingly. LOL.
Polydor, the trainer is a friend of mine on FB. I am not saying much there because honestly what good does it do to bad mouth her? I had a LONG discussion with DH last night about how there are not guarantees in race horse training. Shins happen in all barns and gate cards aren’t something you can expect 100% to happen on a time schedule since the horse has a say. He’s much more angry than I am and it’s just tough.
~Emily
I know all of the “actors” as they say on the news these days. The trainer worked /rode for me while she was in H/S and on college break.
IMO and I told her as much she did not spend nearly as much time apprenticing on the racing side of things before going out on her own.
She is a very competent rider enough so that I was one of two jumps trainer that signed her jump jocks license. She worked/rode for a BNT in NY for a while but not nearly long enough.
There’s far more to “training” then just getting horses fit and ready to run. IMO and experience the majority of people who work with horses no matter how long don’t have the “gift”.
Soundness issues on the come are not as easy to pick up on as the people and or the “book” suggests. Not even for a lot of Vets. IMO I doubt the trainer had nefarious intentions. IMO she is just young and inexperienced. As are lot of trainers these days. Not even just the “young” ones.
I tried to help this trainer out after she got her license a few years ago. But due to lack of communication she lost out. Not only with me but with what might have been a pretty good owner I was trying to put her together with.
I took her to the “woodshed” with an email. I only took the time to give some worldly advise based on mistakes I made at her age and because of our relationship and more so because I really like her. She didn’t even have the courtesy to reply. Not entirely surprising these days. I have “helped” several in resent years that would not be where they are if it wasn’t for a “helping hand”. Something completely lost on most young people these days.
I have never forgotten my mentors and thanked them, stayed in touch for years and years after the fact.
In this day and age there is NO reason why trainers can’t, don’t communicate well with the people that are writing them a check. It doesn’t always have to be a voice call, text, email, video clips, pictures all of which can be done easily and quickly.
“No News is Good News” is an old “comforting saying”. But it is a BS excuse for not communicating with owners on a regular bases. No matter if the ‘news’ is good, bad or ugly.
A few year ago I was sent a horse to break that was bred and owned by a trainer. She got my number from another trainer who had horses that came off my farm.
Her husband was a fairly BNT in the mid-Atlantic but she had her own small string. She asked me to make sure the horse could be mounted from a “wall” or block. The filly come with good ground manners and was pretty easy to get going. Unlike a lot of others that are just pulled out of a field.
She received steady updates, video clips, pictures emails and voice. By late summer the filly was progressing as much as she should. Nice filly good mind, did every thing asked just wasn’t showing much ability and or interest.
Called the trainer/owner and told her my thoughts. Told her that maybe a change of venue may “wake” her up. She ready to go to the track and that might help things. But IMO she wasn’t much of a race horse and I would have expect too much.
Well, I got an ear full. “Everything out of that mare has been a runner! You must not know what you are doing” etc. Talk about shooting the messenger. She came and got her and it wasn’t a pleasant send off. In the end the filly couldn’t out run a fat man.
I bred a very nice looking Skip Away colt with a partner. A partner who’s name is well known in the industry as a pedigree guru. Gets paid well for it and writes for the TDN. The colt was an RNA yearling but we got an offer after the fact. Well under what we had in him but suited me, but not him. I told him we should take it. Yes, he is a big good looking colt. But he looks more like a sport horse than a race horse.
He bought me out and I broke and trained him. We had a falling out over some other stuff and the horse was sent to a fairly BNT in mid summer. I told him NOT to put a lot of money into the horse. I told the trainer pretty much the same thing. Well, the horse stayed in training for 2 years. Went to Florida for 2 winters. Made 4 starts, the best effort was a distant 4th. WTF were they thinking? More like WTF was the trainer thinking, doing? My ex-partner did not have deep pockets.
I have found that a lot of owners feel the same about their horses as they do their kids. They don’t want to hear that their horse is slow anymore than being told their kids are not the most attractive nor sharpest tack in the box.
I’m the opposite. A horse of mine will only go to the track if it shows me a fair amount of MSW ability. I make it clear to the trainers to tell me what I need to need to hear not what I want to hear. They will not hurt my feelings. In fact they will be doing me a favor and saving me a lot of money.
I am in a partnership that has three yearlings that are currently just being started at a very nice training facility in Midway, KY. The mangers of our group get regular updates, photos and growth charts from the farm, and then send them on to us every few weeks.
Like gumtree said, it’s simple nowadays to text or email a photo and a few words to someone every now and again, and can be done from a smartphone with little effort. It’s a shame that, from the sound of it, there are many trainers who won’t take the time to do the little things like this for their owners. Even if they didn’t do it themselves, one would think they could at least have an assistant do the communication for them.
I’m wondering about a trainer that does not run his or her hands down a horse’s legs on a regular basis, especially one that is starting fast work and has a change in attitude. At the very least, the groom should have noticed something. Stay away from that barn.
