I’m wondering what are the must-knows about purchasing and restarting an OTTB that one should know beyond the usual of doing a PPE and starting from basics of reteaching ground manners and whatnot. I’d be working with a trainer and everything, don’t worry! But for my own peace of mind, I’m just trying to cover all my bases and do my due diligence.
OTTBs tend to have excellent ground manners, I don’t know why people think they don’t have any.
Your question is too vague for any particular answer, the only thing that really comes to mind for someone who hasn’t worked with one before (has your trainer?) is that you do not not want to bit them up. And I keep them on some kind of digestive support as a rule, as they are good ulcer candidates.
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From my experience, I always give them a course of omogaurd to begin with, no if, buts or maybe’s with that. I also get teeth and a good physio/chiro so all of your basics are covered before you even start. Give them as much turnout as possible, to begin with, and don’t ever let them go without hay in front of them.
This helps them a lot physically and mentally. Especially if they haven’t had a huge let down period.
Here’s my little program when I start working on them. It’s nothing special but the majority of mine seem to thrive on it. You have to remember that they’re green horses that essentially been backed and not much else education wise.
The first two weeks are free lunging in a round yard. Ask them to walk, trot, canter teaching them voice commands. They’re going to be unbalanced and falling in and you’ll be thinking “Holy crap what have I done?” But they need to learn to find their own balance. It only needs to be a few laps each way, not harassing them for an hour in circles. Don’t worry about anything but letting them find their own feet and learning what a circle is. Any gear such as side reins is completely counterproductive during this time. Just leave them be.
First few rides under saddle are mostly spent at the walk. The first thing is teaching them to go off your leg. Most track riders carry a short whip and tap them on the shoulder to get going. I do this as well as putting leg on. Some of them are confused, to begin with why your legs are so far down on their sides, they may even kick out a little, but carrying a short whip and tapping on the shoulder as well as applying leg lets them work it out pretty quickly. Then it’s just transitions. Walk. Halt. Walk. Halt. Have a little trot and back to walk. Really basic baby steps. If they’re sensible, nice loose reins and let them travel along to find their own rhythm. If they’re on the spicy side, short reins but soft hands always allowing forward. Don’t grab and get into a pulling match. It takes two to pull and you won’t win against them. A running martingale helps with the hotter ones, but I’ll only put one on if I feel like my nose is going to get broken.
Then they need to move off your leg sideways. It’s one thing I notice with people retraining their TB’s is that they’re so stiff laterally because they don’t incorporate any lateral work in very early in the stages of re-training. Use a dressage whip and at the walk, ask them to move over a step from the quarter line. Just one step. Praise and repeat. At the halt ask them to bend their neck around and touch your toes at the halt. Do turn on the forehand to get them to understand to move their butt around. Once they understand sideways, then you’ll be able to move them around the arena easily and not feel like you’re going to fall over anytime you go around a corner.
If they’re sensible, I’ll canter them out in an open paddock the first few times so they can find their balance easier. If you’ve got a small incline, then asking for a canter uphill lets them balance easier and also makes the transition easier. Be very clear with your canter aid, so when starting to go back into the arena, they understand it.
From there, it’s a lot of good old fashioned flat work with the right instructor.
I love my OTT horses. They’re very rewarding in the long run.
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I don’t have as much experience as some, but generally speaking they enjoy routine and a job. You’ll undoubtedly have some things to fix physically before you can start any real retraining under saddle - whether its SI or feet or ulcers or body soreness or something else - maybe multiple things. Many lean into the bit to go faster, so you’ll have to re-train the response you want to the bit.
In terms of ground manners, some are great, some are not. Most don’t know how to cross tie, but straight tie fine (some only if there are walls). Many will be used to being led with a chain shank.
Make sure you do a very thorough PPE, regardless of what the rescue/rehome tells you. Be prepared to feed more than you’ve likely ever fed a horse before! And have a darn good farrier.
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He/she is an OTTB. He has been handled, ridden and most likely raced. If he as not been raced, ask yourself why, did he have a injury? Would he not learn to break the gate? Some exercise riders are well educated, in which case you may luck out. Some videos I’ve seen of the rehab farms are a tribute to the horse’s tolerance.
Assuming that there are no minuses there, start over with longing. Read Podhajsky’s books, particularly “The Complete Training of Horse and Rider”. If you are fortunate enough to have a trainer who knows and understands the benefits of correct longing, learn from them .
Some of these horses require a let down period, others you can go right to work with. Initially, hacking them out is a good idea. Many are bombproof, others have holes in their proofing. Ride in company.
And good luck. All of mine came before there were “restart farms”.of direct from the trainer.
As with any new horse, you need to spend some time getting to know him, assess what he knows, and what he doesn’t know, how he reacts to pressure, what changes you want to make in his training. “Re-break” him. Run him through the basics of breaking training, ground work, lunging, figuring out what type of snaffle he likes and is comfortable in. Since you don’t know much about his previous training, and “re-homing” facilities may not either, you get to find these things out as you work with him. He may have been well trained, and well ridden previously and be easy and simple to switch from racing to riding horse disciplines, or he may not have had good basics installed by previous riders and trainers.
The differences between race training and riding horse training is the horse’s carriage/balance, and the use of the leg. In race training, the rider has less leg on the horse’s side, though in early training he probably did have some leg cues introduced. But accepting the rider’s leg and reacting accurately may need to be reschooled. The balance of a racehorse is often using the rider’s hand for balance, and a bit heavier on the forehand than we want in a riding horse, so the horse must learn to carry himself, rather than rely on balancing himself on the rider’s hand. He will have to learn to be lighter on the forehand, and have a well engaged hind end, which he may not have had as a racehorse. This will make him light in your hand rather than leaning on your hand, which is the key to making the change in job description. He will learn to relax and listen to you, and accommodate to the changes you are making with him during your ground work, and since he’s already accustomed to having a rider on his back, it can be pretty easy to make the switch for him. The only issue with this is whether he has been a horse who has been ridden with blinkers during his race training and career. These are used for a variety of reasons, one of which is with a horse who is intrinsically frightened of the sight of a rider on his back… the blinkers block his vision of the rider on his back. “French Cup” or cheater blinkers are used for this purpose. These horses are OK with the “feel” of the rider, just not the sight of the rider up there. Sometimes, they have just continued to be blinker horses, this fear has never been something that he has had to face during his race career. Sometimes it was like this early in their training, and they just get over it in time, and are OK without the blinkers, sometimes not. If this is the case, it is something that you will have to address, carefully. In most cases, horses will get over it, but it is best to be prepared. Horses using full cup blinkers are those who simply need “less” input from what they see in order to concentrate on the rider. A horse like this may be spooky without blinkers… seeing too many things and not able to concentrate on the rider’s direction. And since they don’t have a lot of education to the rider’s leg, it can be difficult to use leg cues to deal with this.
These are the sorts of things you can ask and investigate if you purchase a horse directly from the race trainer and talk to the exercise riders who have ridden the horse. If the placement service is competent, they may have already investigated these questions, and dealt with these issue. If not competent, they may not have.
Good luck, retraining an OTTB is a great way to get a great horse for an affordable price.
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Depends wildly on the how long the horse was at the track, the quality of their handling at track and amount of post-track training, but some differences between my OTTB and other horses I have noticed are:
prefers to eat out of a hay net as opposed to the floor / manger
is fine being stalled and was really unsure of what to do in turnout
lunging had to be taught
cross ties were a mystery - as was straight tieing unless the tie was really high
be prepared to teach them to stand quietly at a mounting block while you get on - many are used to the rider hoping on mid-walk
they are super for leg wraps (at least my guy was) also great for bathing and clipping.
like @Obsidian_Fire said, be prepared to deal with thin skin and hard keeper. Put on a good hoof supplement ASAP and educate yourself about hooves ( I really wish I did - it would have saved my horse a world of hurt) Be prepared to go through a few farriers until you find one who can deal with long tow low heel and will work with your horse’s hooves properly.
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