@EventerAJ What a lovely picture of a lovely event horse: balance, concentration, partnership.
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Trust me - if we get settled in a spot where another horse makes sense, you are going to be my first contact! Every time you post a pic of your horses I’m in awe. It is unfortunate that there isn’t booming demand - but I get the impression that’s an issue nationwide for more than just sport TBs.
Restarts are fun and frustrating. I’ve had my most recent OTTB for almost a year, and we have spent most of that year fixing feet, figuring out his diet, loosening up his body, and teaching basic riding horse skills. Oh, and taking time off because he blows up like a balloon every time he gets a scratch in turnout 
. If I was a pro, he’d be farther along - but the slow route is working for him. Not many people want to peel back those layers - they want to go to the Makeover or get in the show ring asap. And I get that, so those are the people that should buy horses farther along or are more talented/have more time than me. Do I think this horse would handle the pressure? Yes, but I like how he is without having pushed him.
Anyway. Ramble. But still, I love me a TB. I’ve owned 3 myself, and I expect to own more.
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So much this! It’s such a shame that there is no market for sport-bred TBs. I lucked into an unstarted, unspoiled baby TB with very sought-after sport lines and it has been such a different experience starting her vs. the many OTTBs I’ve restarted over the years. I love OTTBs - they have always been, and will always be, my preferred ride. But you really don’t realize how much STUFF they carry with them (good and bad) until you start with a blank slate baby TB.
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Many race-bred TBs are now aimed at shorter races and are bred for speed as 2—and 3-year-olds. That has changed the TB from the type of horse that I rode as a teen 50 years ago, for sure. In my (limited) experience, horses bred for turf tend to mature a bit later and are larger, with more bone, but that may just be a factor of the horses I’ve looked at.
I recently read a book about Lexington and was shocked to find out that in his day, horses ran multiple four-mile heats to determine the winner. Can you imagine that today?
I do love TBs and have had several OTTBs over the years. Great heart and great talent. I’d definitely look at TBs bred for sport.
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One of the horses I rode the most when I returned to riding was Minnie, an elderly range-bred TB mare who had never been destined for the track. She was owned by the mother of the friend I rode with, who had bought her as a baby in 1984 as a conformation hunter prospect. She was 15.2 and just lovely, but had suffered an injury as a young horse that kept her from showing. She’d been a school horse and briefly a field hunter, but had sat around a lot in the back yard, too.
My friend wasn’t sure about pairing us up, because I’d been mostly out of the saddle for 25 years and Minnie had been out of work for a few years and could be a bit hot and silly, but we got along fine, and I am blessed with good stickability due to being so bottom-heavy. Unfortunately, Minnie didn’t stay sound enough to ride after less than a year, so she had to be retired.
Those who follows Denny Emerson will know about him buying similar tough, range-raised TBs as eventing prospects from Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas decades ago, but is anyone breeding TBs like that anymore?
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Yes and no.
There are definitely more shorter races than longer races, but that’s not specifically due to “horses aren’t bred to run long” as much as the racetracks/trainers prefer to offer a 6f-7f product. It’s a vicious cycle.
BUT, distance breeding isn’t gone. I’d argue that it’s perhaps more popular now than 20yrs ago. Tapit is a tremendous distance influence-- look at his Belmont winners!-- coming from his AP Indy sireline. Tapit is all over modern pedigrees, through his sons and daughters. Curlin, too, is more of a classic distance horse and very popular (& commercial!) so he isn’t going anywhere. Into Mischiefs might trend more toward 7-8f, but big rangy Authentic did win the Covid Derby. It’s really not hard to find distance in a pedigree. Now, on track performance? Again, it’s a function of what races are offered and…perhaps more notably, what TRAINERS are willing to train for. I will argue all day every day that our horses today aren’t more fragile than their counterparts, they are just ridden and trained differently. “Back in the day” horses WORKED a mile or more; and raced much more frequently; and they got winters off! Now, everything breezes a half, maybe 5f. Ironically, I feel like modern trainers try to protect soundness a little more by doing less with the horses, which may end up with a less durable animal ultimately. And horses are less likely to have a few months off every year (which honestly our show horses are guilty of, too!).
As someone who has intensely studied pedigrees since 2005, and gone to the sales to watch what is physically out there (at the very best levels), I don’t think the top breeders have “ruined” the breed. I see lots of horses at the yearling and 2yo sales that fit my type (not a QH-y sprinter). My sport TBs don’t come from obscure pedigrees, there are names close on the page anyone would recognize… GOOD breeding… but people see them and are SHOCKED that’s a TB! But that’s what they “used” to breed… no, it’s still out there, you just have to be a little more open minded and learn which modern sires are useful.
It’s true, turf bred horses tend to run longer and may have longer careers. Maybe they are built better, maybe the turf is kinder to them, maybe they are trained differently…or maybe it’s because many of them get part of the year off when their turf tracks close up north for the winter. There’s also a misconception that international pedigrees are “better” than our American ones…because international racing on turf… but that’s silly, because many of those international pedigrees are based with American bloodlines. GB, IRE, AUS all love them some Northern Dancer! You think US horses are inbred too much? Go look how much Danehill and Sadler’s Wells you find over there, it’s more than our use of Mr P. And a lot of those ND criss-crosses end up a little smaller, lighter, catty type of horses; not what Americans envision as a “big, rangy English TB.” Australia, in particular, values their sprinters even more than we do, and they have plenty of stallions that fit that physical predisposition. But we’ve shuttled Bernardini, Medaglia D’Oro, American Pharoah, and Justify to Australia too.
I digress. I’m sorry, I can talk pedigrees all day. Not specific to you, Bogie, but I hear a LOT of dismissal of American TBs and it’s mostly not true. I have a farm full of TBs, the “old school” physical type that people say doesn’t exist anymore. People come to my farm and are shocked… THAT’S a Thoroughbred?! Yes, it is. They all are. I have a client’s 2yo here for training; he was bred to race, his mother sold for 150k as a weanling, but he’s too big and slow to go to the track so they want him trained in H/J for their granddaughter. He is over 17h as a two year old! He is by Vekoma out of a Verrazano mare, second dam by Unbridled’s Song. That’s solid, modern KY breeding…and in 3 years, he will fit right in at the hunter ring, not tattooed, and no one will guess him as a TB. He’s also quiet, kind, smart, and extremely easy, a perfect future ammy hunter. There are many of these TBs out there, but you may not find them on CANTER or through the lower end track brokers… the race owners/breeders will quietly rehome them within their circle, like this one (and similarly, how I ended up with my stallion Saketini).
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One thing about horses off the track is many are ‘broke’ and not flustered by so many things, farriers tractors shipping loading etc.they have done it all by three. But I am biased as I think there are some pretty gorgeous looking yearlings at the sales that would likely make great sport horses but they are worth too much!
And Maybe good news is turf racing seems to be more financially viable.
Last thought is when you look at some early photos when the technology came into being - do dome of some of those top thoroughbreds looked pretty light boned compared to present thoroughbreds? It would be interesting if there was actual data on how the thoroughbred may have changed since 1900.
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I’m not sure what the light-boned tb is about. I’ve found if you give them work over uneven terrain they really seem to “build bone”. I don’t know if it’s the work, the different footing (asphalt, rocky trails, sand, etc), being ridden on the buckle at pace, or what. But you will see a spindly looking ottb come in as a 3,4,5 yo and within the year they will have filled out and gotten legs. I used to be big on ponying too. Ride one and pony the other and the next day switch.
One came in with such a narrow chest it looked like both front legs came out of the same place. Months later I was grooming him and it hit me, the boy had developed a chest! I didn’t even noticing it happening.
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From the Throwback Thursday article on Sara and Auggie (her tb 5* horse). “He was the kind of horse that you don’t realize that riding at that level is hard,” she said. “You’re like, ‘Why is everyone making such a big deal out of this?’ and then you get on the next horse, and you’re like, ‘Holy moly!’ ”
I think the Thoroughbred motto should be “When you need to get there and back…”.
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Interesting post @EventerAJ, thank you. I find it interesting that COTH people talk of the need to deal with multiple structural issues when taking on a former racehorse (backs, feet etc). This isn’t a common conversation here in the UK, where the animals are trained in yards away from the racetracks, work on a variety of surfaces (grass, synthetics, roads) and frequently have some turn out, too. With two distinct seasons of flat and jump racing, most horses also have a long rest period at some point during the year. Plenty of the breeding is USA because TB racing is such an international business.
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I’ve never understood the “OTTBs are all light-boned” thing, either- the truth is that they come in all shapes and sizes! It isn’t at all hard to find big ones, though. We have had and currently have huge, big-boned TBs in our barn. These are 17hh+ event horses who tower over my WB tubes and eat up XC courses. One of my boys’ pasture mates over the summer is easily 17.3hh.
We also have a delicate OTTB mare who looks like her spindly little legs will break as she is charging around the terrain with her junior rider- she’s in her late-teens now and can still jump a house. My last OTTB (pictured above) was just about 16.3hh and very elegantly-built. He was jumping sound at Training level with maintenance until his 20s, at which point I decided he had more than earned retirement. The OTTB before him was pretty weedy when I bought him at 4 years old. He had a growth spurt at 5-6 and ended up built like a semi.
It takes years to redevelop a horse off the track so that their muscles are on top and not the bottom of their neck, to train them to work correctly over their back, and so on- they end up looking different because the work is different, but it takes a lot of time. I was just watching my good friend ride her event horse the other day, thinking of when she got him at age 5 a month or two off the track- he had a pencil neck and was just bones and muscles and sharp angles. Several years later he is a 17hh burly jumping machine whose dressage is a thing of beauty. Our trainer has taken him Prelim and it was EASY for him- he could be a straight show jumper if he didn’t love XC so much.
And so on. OTTBs are a wide and varied bunch, and if one has a good eye one can see the promise even in the weediest, gangliest baby racer.
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Not silly at all! It just shows how much you loved your horse .
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My late ottb (JC Southern Pines if anyone’s curious) looked light boned and was petite but he was a tough sound horse. I had him for 22 years and he was still jumping when he was 26. Lost him to a freak turnout injury.
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FWIW, the vast majority of the top show hunters currently are not 17.2hh mammoth warmbloods. There seems to be this idea that it’s all tiny amateur ladies riding these behemoths in amateur owners. I would argue the hunters have been trending more towards a refined, “typey” horse that is heavier on the TB influence (though still a warmblood) than the big clunky warmbloods that you may see in say, the big equitation ring.
One of my horses is imported and is registered as a “Royal Dutch warmblood” despite being 1/4 TB when you look at his breeding 
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I don’t have many photos of him because I didn’t have him for long as he sold unexpectedly quick, but one of my old horses had that classic, light boned refined TB build people used to love. I still love it. I’m petite and it’s a horse size I can actually get my leg around.
Again, not many great photos, and cell phone quality was bad ten years ago. But I got him for free from someone who got in over their head trying to restart him straight off the track. After new shoes and some light flat work, I decided to play around and free jump him just to see what he would do. He was so naturally athletic over a fence and if I had been in a place to keep him for myself I absolutely would have after seeing him jump - his style was so classic even when he was just trying to figure it out. He was such a cool horse and ended up in a great home to go be a hunter.
I’ve always loved TBs and always had them growing up. I have a WB now, but he’s built closer to the TB stereotype than a lot of what’s being posted here (narrow through his body, not super bulky or wide). Just goes to show how little the stereotype is worth!
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So true! People were shocked at how much I fed my hunt horse and he was only 16.1. As I remember he was on 6-8 quarts of TC Sr. per day, plus a fat supplement like Purina Athlete, plus soaked alfalfa cubes, plus free choice hay. In comparison, my much bigger draft x mare can get fat on grass and a ration balancer. Unfortunately, I have her metabolism and not his.
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Everyone, including me, is horrified at how much my horse eats. He’s 16h, 25 years old, but still very much in full work eventing, hunter pacing, trail rides, and weekly jumping lessons. He gets 12 quarts of Purina Senior Active, 3 quarts soaked alfalfa pellets, and free choice hay. I recently added up what he costs to feed and I regret it. I tell myself I’m actually saving money since he’s sound and loves to work so I haven’t had to retire him and buy another horse.
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They probably weren’t expected to do it at age 2 or 3, though. Or race every couple of weeks, year-round. And they mostly weren’t “Thoroughbreds” either. Wealthy colonists might import a British TB stallion, but that stallion was then bred with local mares, which were usually “mutts” or draft crosses. The foals hopefully emerged as stylish riding horses, but they were a mish-mash of breeds and genetics.
Not saying today’s TBs aren’t being bred for speed versus distance and are very different phenotypically from Lexington, but horses in those early races were big-boned crosses for the most part, older, and used to being ridden long distances on a daily basis just to take their owners to town, to visit far-flung friends, etc.
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Most early races were “match races” between two horses and several matches might be run by a horse on a single day and possibly repeated again over several days. These matches generally started fairly slowly and worked up to maximum speed towards the end. There is a village near Newmarket, the HQ of horse racing, named Six Mile Bottom as it was a starting point for races into town. It was only in the 19th century, with the invention of effective handicapping, circular “park” racecourses and wider ownership, that races with multiple runners became the norm. Britain and Ireland have retained some long flat races, the longest being The Queen Alexandra Stakes at Ascot, which is 2 miles 4 furlongs (2.5 miles). European racing also retains the practice of starting relatively slowly and building to a speedy finish (except in the short 5 - 6 furlong sprints) whereas American racing tends to be full speed from the gate. ‘City of Troy’ at the recent Breeders Cup missed the break and Aidan O’Brien, the self-depreciating trainer, said the race was lost at the start as he hadn’t prepared the horse adequately for the new style. In Jump racing, two miles is a short one.
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Im so sorry for you loss.
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