Oops, all gone. Bye bye coth.
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So you are legally an adult, but are enmeshed with a really dysfunctional family because you can not afford to leave?
Your number one priority needs to be getting out of your family and on your own, self supporting. Yes, that likely means you canāt afford horses or luxuries for some time. I would assume this isnāt the first time youāve seen bad horsemanship from your mother.
You might find it useful to seek out some counselling.
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im in therapy, and slowly building up the funds to leave. Unfortunately, the housing market (even low income appartments) is crazy in my area right now so itās much slower than Iād like. Iād have to leave the state to find an affordable spot and I have no idea how to do that. Not to mention iād need a car firstā¦ Theres a lot of barriers that just take a lot of time to get past 
Luckily I dont have to give up all my horses as one of my horses is leased out, and iāll be able to get her back when I have a safe space. Leasing her out hurt so much but Iām so glad shes safe and her leaser will take care of her until I can bring her home.
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I think you probably have to save yourself before you can save any horses.
You might be best off finding your spot so when your mare comes back you have a place for her. It sounds like your mother could muscle in on that horse too.
Edited for spelling
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Your parentās barn, your parentās rules. At some point we all learn this.
I agree with Scribbler, this sounds like a situation that needs counseling and professionals for all parties involved. In the mean time it may be best you limit contact with your family. Your mother controlling you, you trying to control your mother - this is not a safe or happy dynamic for either of you. Horses are secondary and a luxury ā come back to them when you are in a safer, better place. You need to be your own first priority and your own best ambassador. Sometimes that means walking out or cutting ties with people or family members.
That being said, let me lay down some tough love: you should not have risked your motherās life by trying to undo an OTTBās bridle while a rider is on board. Especially not one as unpredictable as youāve made out Mercy to be. You are lucky no one was hurt. If I ever watched someone do that in my barn, that would be their last day on my farm. No excuses.
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Alright, Iām going to say it:
You, OP - disabilities aside - have a very uneducated approach to an OTTB.
You say this horse was raced.
Do you understand this means he was handled according to track protocol?
By the time a 2yo has been tattooed & sent to earn his keep, this is a horse used to routine:
*Workout mornings
*Stalled the rest of the day
*Race Day readied for his race: fed, bathed, saddled & off to the gate
(this is a summary - not chapter & verse)
āTrack Mannersā can mean heās not a cuddly pet, but a horse with a job & some crankiness is not only tolerated, but considered Spirited by those handling him.
And not only can he canter quite readily (gallop is accelerated canter with a moment of complete suspension: all 4 off the ground) but heās been trained to take the left lead exclusively as they break from the gate & run counterclockwise.
What you described as your ātrainingā is only confusing to him.
Not saying your Motherās approach is 100% correct either, but sheās correct in thinking he can do more work than youāve decided heās capable of. And, in fact, has done so in his years on the track.
It doesnāt sound like this horse is going to work for you in your current situation. Especially taking into account the conflict with your Mother.
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This whole situation is not good. You need to focus on finding a place, even if you canāt have your horses with you. How many horses do you have?
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Yes to what the posters above have said. Trying to take off the bridle while your mother was in the saddle is inexcusable. I have no idea what the dynamics are here or how horse knowledgeable your parents are. It sounds like there are lots of other horses on the property.
It can be very hard for dependent young adults to make a psychological and financial break from their parents. Ironically sometimes itās hardest to leave when the situation is bad because you are so enmeshed. But if itās gotten to the point of mutual violence, you trying to take off the bridle and your mother pulling your hair and pushing you to the ground, you need out of there now. This is mutually reinforcing violent behavior and you are complicit in it.
I also agree that the ideas about race horses are unrealistic but I think the family dynamic is the problem. Sell the horse on as a project to a local trainer and go get a job, any job.
If you are in fact a minor, get out and go live with a relative. you need to break this cycle.
If your parents are nutcases then you need to become the adult and take care of yourself. Making up excuses why you are going to stay with them, continue dysfunctional behavior, and feel seek pity online is not productive.
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(Apologizes beforehand for possible incoherence. Talking about this is triggering and can cause brain fog. )
Does anyone know a good lesson barn around Bucks County PA/Hunterdon County NJ (Or a little ways outside the counties) for nervous (Read: terrified) riders who want a from the ground restart? A dressage focus, or just general English riding!
Im worried if I go to a barn that knows my family that I wont get the restart I want because they know how I used to ride.(YOU DONT HAVE TO READ THIS, ITS JUST BACKGROUND)
Iām a 20yo who hasnāt āproperlyā ridden in a few years (Maybe 4 or 5) and I realized (after having a breakdown in a stall mid-cleaning) that I am terrified of riding. I can walk and trot and love trail rides, but the second my horse tenses up or stares into the distance I freeze and get so scared that theyāre going to bolt. (I know exactly what incident caused this, and itās actually part of my CPTSD)
I really want to start properly riding again, IE: Helping a horse carry themself properly and balancing not just sitting on a horse and letting them walk around.
This was your post from Aug 2022. I really think you should look at rehoming the OTTB. I donāt know how your mum rides, but from your posts I canāt agree that she is the problem. I think there is a good chance the horse āhas it over youā. An OTTB that is uninjured (ie not a tendon rehab) does not need 15 minute walk rides and baby reins. At this point he needs an education with a confident rider. You need to get on your feet by yourself, establish good relationships with people outside of what appears to be a toxic family environment, and maybe get yourself some lessons on a friendly packer that will help bring you the confidence. I understand scared, I do. I had a nasty fall two years back that still haunts me. An OTTB is really not the way Iād rebuild that missing confidence (the rare unicorn does of course exist!)
Again, without knowing you or your family, I am inclined to read a bit of āBlack Stallion Syndromeā in your posts, coupled with resentment - justified or not - towards your mum for stepping in.
Rehome the horse. Rehome yourself into a more settled, stable environment. Thenā¦ get back to the horses.
I wish you luck.
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I agree with everything else, but this is not true.
Vent, not aimed at you - it irks the crap out of me when people write off right lead resistance in OTTBs as āoh he only knows the left lead because heās a track horseā. No, heās probably lacking in strength, or straightness, or maybe thereās a physical thing there that needs investigation.
But - racehorses use both leads in every race. They typically are trained to break on the right. An example:
At the gate all but two break on the right lead. Coming into the turn, all but one is on the right lead. You can slow down the video and watch the horses switch to the left lead for the turn. Switch back to the right for the straightaway, back onto the left for the next turn. Flightline is the first to return to the right lead on the stretch, followed by Life is Good as the jockey pulls him to the outside of Flightlineās bid. Behind them, both horses are on the right, the horse on the rail is on the left. Every horse they show crossing the finish line is on the right lead.
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Lots of āBlack Stallionā syndrome here.
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3 months in a pasture isnāt going to make a horse horribly unfit, especially not a recently off the track TB. When I was growing up, the barn I rode at (not a good situation, not for what Iām about to mention but for myriad other reasons Iām not going to detail) didnāt have an indoor arena so I often as not didnāt ride regularly during the winter and the horses would have 2-3 months off. Yes you need to get them fit again after that, but unless they got injured they probably didnāt need really delicate handling.
Racing fit and āeveryday riding horse fitā are different.
Thatās racing. Like it, donāt like it, agree with it or not if you donāt want to deal with a horse who was started under saddle at a young age, at all, donāt get an OTTB.
My first horse, ever, was an OTTB I had at 16 and I rode at a backyard dump of a barn and I probably had a touch of what COTHāers would call āBlack Stallion Syndromeā and I didnāt have it as bad as it sounds like you do. Sure as heck wouldnāt have described my horse as āmentally in painā from simply being a racehorse. Itās a different life but frankly, he was probably treated better at the track than he was at the barn he landed at where I was riding back then.
But he was green and absolutely knew steering and walk/trot/canter. I even taught him to (kinda/sorta?) neck rein.
You can make some generalizations about what this horse is going to know but from the way youāre writing Iād bet this horse knows a lot more than about what riding is than you give him credit for. Itās just all different.
This kind of behavior is going to make everything harder on Mercy. He needs stable humans in his life and it doesnāt sound like you or your family can offer him that.
You need to focus on getting yourself out of this situation if itās that bad. Iāve seen bad horsemanship and from your description neither yourself nor your parents are practicing good horsemanship. That said, āair being forcedā from a horsesā lungs with each hit? Either your mother is built like a sumo wrestler or more likely the horse was breathing hard/getting snorty from nerves due to all the chaos in that moment.
Iāve seen people haul off and lose their cool with a horse, not just a sharp tug on the reins, Iām talking kicking hard, the olā crank-n-yank school of come-to-jesus horsemanship, and I donāt think I ever observed "air being forced from the horseās lungs.)
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Being bored and recovering from pneumonia been reading some of the Ops older posts, I think this horse knows more about being ridden than the OP does about ridingā¦
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I worked as barn security for nearly a full season of racing (started about a month into the season and stuck around to the end of the season. Season here was mid-April-ish to early November) at a TB and QH racetrack about 5 years ago now. What others on here have described as the usual routine for a racehorse is pretty spot-on.
Morning work out (usually bright and early, the last few would be wrapping up when my shift started at 10 AM) if theyāre not racing that day, in the stall the rest of the day. This was a smaller track with smaller-time owners so sometimes a horse wouldnāt be there the full season and I remember some people talking about how the horses would have turnout, etc. at home in the off-season.
The people I got to know better who had some of these horses, e.g. the really small-time owners, absolutely cared about their horses but werenāt as sentimental about them as some can be. I had seen a few grooms and the like (who definitely didnāt always seem aware Iād just walked in) loving on a horse (petting them, kind of making a fuss, pretty sure I spotted one guy sitting on an overturned bucket in front of a horseās stall practically giving him a pep talk before the race one time 
) but no, it wasnāt as common as it would be in a non-racing environment.
One day that season (this is the only such incident I recall happening that season and it might be because I was in the receiving barn where the horses who shipped in just for a day were and I believe this one was a ship-in) a young horse, two years old, got hurt during a race and had to be put down. His owner/trainer (no one big time) and his groom (woman, young-ish, white, Iād actually talked to her for a sec b/c one of the other horses she was in charge of was really pretty) both just crying. And I doubt it was because theyād just lost a bunch of money. If this wasnāt that horseās first race it was within his first five, he was young. I think of this when I see people saying no one in racing actually cares about the horses.
There are absolutely some racing connections who donāt care but there are many who do. Not all the owners and trainers are rich fat cats in it for the prestige. I knew an old guy when I worked at the track who owned and trained all his own horses and drove an old beat-up truck, looked like any farm boy you could find in a diner, regularly had the radio in his barn tuned to classic rock. He once was watching a horse on the TV in the receiving barn and said something about how the stewards are going to scratch that one - I was walking by and hadnāt been paying attention but heād noticed the horse (who belonged to a different trainer) was lame. Sure enough, horse was scratched.
Iāve mentioned my first horse was an OTTB on here - he raced locally and when I worked at the track I met some of his connections (his owner was long since out of racing but his trainer was still involved and her barn manager had also known my horse. I was in their barn once and caught the barn manager and asked if heād ever known a horse by (my boyās registered name) and explained Iād owned him after the track and heād died of colic a few years ago at that time). One day I noticed they had a ton of winners circle photos (turned out to be hundreds they kept every single one they had) on the walls of the little office in the barn. I asked them if theyād by chance have one from my guyās career (Iād searched online but not successfully) and if I could just see it. They found one (heād won 3 out of 9 races in his career) and let me keep it. I took it home, put it in a frame and hung it on my wall.
EDIT: I guess, I wrote all this because I feel like people who havenāt ever been around a track past maybe watching a race or two donāt always realize that while yes, itās different I wouldnāt necessarily say itās better or worse in some ways. Itās just a different sport with different expectations of the horses. I also donāt like how OPās post smacks of āevery horse that has ever raced was ABUSED poor wittle horsey.ā Like - no. They arenāt spoiled rotten in the same way (they are often allowed to get away with behavior a lot of us adult ammies would consider unacceptable) perhaps but theyāre not necessarily abused. (Yes I realize drugs, etc. are all very real problems. Iām talking more in the sense of no, these people arenāt as sentimental, the horses maybe wonāt be as lovey-dovey with humans, but that does not = āabused wittle ponykinsā). They also definitely know how to be ridden, just again, with different expectations and a different routine than what youād see in, say, the average boarding barn for (insert sporthorse discipline here) with the average adult ammie rider.
EDIT 2: Realized I forgot to mention but at the track where I worked Iād definitely see some temporary/portable/folding round pens set up outside some barns with a horse in them to provide some (very not ideal but better than nothing) turnout.
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Yes, there are barriers, and they can seem insurmountable.
You donāt have to leave your state to find an affordable apartment. You can find them online.
When I looked for HUD-subsidized senior apartments I did so online because I had neither a car nor the funds to travel. I did have Internet access.
I had to move out of town because there were no available apartments in the city where I was living. My cousin moved me in his truck.
I donāt know how old you are or what your disability is but I do know there are services to help people of various abilities who need financial help or just counseling. Some are local, some are online.
Can you sell a horse or two and buy a car? Do you drive?
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Youāre using the horse to work out your issues with your mother. She may be doing the same with you. That never ends up well for the animal.
Even people I know who have relatively good relationships with their parents sometimes get into conflict when they train a horse ātogetherā or the kid trains the horse for the mom or vice versa. Even many trainers send their kids off to other instructors because they know they canāt offer objective advice. And youāre not starting from a āgood place.ā
I agree that you seem to think that this horse is mentally and physically damaged from being a racehorse, and from what you describe it sounds like he may have been more confused by being ridden on loopy reins and treated like a puppy (praised for 15 minutes of good behavior). And the way you behaved with your mom sounds terrifying. Honestly, as a middle-aged breakable person, if I was riding a horse and some kid tried to rip the reins out of my hands, Iād be kicking and pulling to get away too, terrified, and wouldnāt have reacted all that well.
Even if your situation was less toxic, youād need a trainer to act as an intermediary between you and your mom and to give you experienced, sound advice. Again, I know pro trainers with years of experience training horses (even, yes, OTTBs for their kid) who call in outside help, because they want backup because once it becomes a āmom saysā situation, kids often tune out (or vice versa, moms tune out a more experienced trainer child).
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@endlessclimb Thanks for the correction re: R Lead. I do know racers swap, but tend to favor L at the gate. This info from the trainer (Arlington & Gulfstream) who sold me my TB (OT, but not tattooed or raced.
Here he is, failing his 2yo Speed Test (with Mrs Trainer aboard) She later had her own string @ Gulfstream.
@anon15718925 I didnāt mean to imply NO trainer or groom cared for their horses. Gal pictured above has been retired for several years, still posts pics of some of āherā horses & rehomed several.
But a lot of behavior - aka Track Manners - civilian owners attribute to abuse, is just what was allowed when the horse was in work.
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I didnāt mean you I meant more OP and her idea that her horse is almost definitely mentally scarred or something.
I realize the expectations are completely different re. manners.
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Also to note - nasty faces while being groomed can be lots of physical things - OR, the horse simply does not like it.
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OTTB aside, this relationship sounds toxic and abusive and Iām not sure who the true source of the drama is but that incident was one minute away from a domestic assault.
OP you do not want to be getting a criminal record. When things escalate and you donāt get your way, you need to walk away. Not your horse, not your barn, not your rules.
Your mom might be a narcissistic psycho but that still wouldnāt excuse domestic violence which is where this was truly headed.
I think you should consider a break from the horses.
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