ALWAYS AUGUST FARM

News & updates

  • Home
  • Services
    • Boarding
    • Lessons & Training
    • Stable Business
  • For Sale/Lease
  • About
  • Contact
  • News

6/1/2016

OTTB Training 101

0 Comments

Read Now
 
PictureNever Ceasing "Piney" 4-year old OTTB. Isn't he cute?
We have been doing a lot of riding and training at AAF, but very little showing so far this year.  

Riding sometimes 5 horses a day, most of them very green, has left me wondering many time "Where are all the normal horses?!"  ...no seriously.......  Where are the horses that WTC and move in straight AND curved lines?  

All the OTTB re-training blogs from the pros I know seem to go similarly. Horse comes off track, some time is spent on the ground getting them used to scary obstacles, horse is suddenly going to BN events, getting mid-30's on dressage tests, jumping everything and remaining perfectly sensible at shows.  

Is this what it's really like? Not in my experience.....

I recently got a new OTTB prospect, a 4-year old named "Never Ceasing." He has been incredibly calm and easy to handle around the farm. Almost anyone can halter/lead him, he loves to be outside, he is nice in his stall, he goes on the X-ties, he even stands at the mounting block. He can be ridden at the walk and trot sensibly in the field, he circled well both directions (before I pulled his racing plates), and felt reasonably safe to WTC, although he only canters on his left lead.  He walks over poles, and I bet I could walk or trot him over a small jump, although I haven't tried.  

Stromboli was similar when I got him, and I spent 6+ months leisurely hacking him, riding him on the roads, occasionally popping him over some jumps, and doing a calm "re-start." I thought this approach was going to make him easy to handle at shows, make him level headed, and easy to ride on the flat.  I could not have been more wrong.  Was Stromboli a fluke? A product of the other training he got between the track and me? Or was this a bad approach? Should I have stuck him in side reins, lunged him every day, taken lots of dressage lessons? 

Every horse is an individual, and especially when you're a semi-pro trainer like me, with no indoor, a "real" job, a family, a farm to keep up, and a family, you have to make the best choices you can with the time and resources you have.  I could look back and second guess all the choices I made about how to bring Stromboli along, but there's no way of knowing if he would be better or worse right now.  

I rode my 21-year old OTTB mare, Beauty, yesterday. Despite being arthritic & out of shape, she was dead-straight, even in both reins, and extremely correct. I laughed to myself realizing that it only took me 14 or so years to be able to ride her this way....  

Share

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

Details

    Christy Zweig

    Adventures eventing as a semi-pro in the mid-south. 

    Archives

    April 2024
    November 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    May 2023
    September 2022
    July 2022
    December 2020
    May 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    October 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All
    Event Results
    Mustang Power
    Stromboli

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Services
    • Boarding
    • Lessons & Training
    • Stable Business
  • For Sale/Lease
  • About
  • Contact
  • News