Finnick The Fierce Retires From Racing, Could Point To 2022 Makeover With New Owner

Finnick The Fierce, the one-eyed chestnut gelding who captured many fans' imaginations ahead of last year's Kentucky Derby, has retired from racing and found a new home.

Jackie Barr, a long time fan of Finnick The Fierce, is the fan favorite's new owner and will be guiding his transition from the racing life to his next life.

“I followed his racing up until he was supposed to be in the Derby,” she said. “You just root for him, being an underdog. He's such a handsome horse.”

Finnick The Fierce had taken an extended break after being a late scratch out of the 2020 Kentucky Derby, returning to the races with an allowance win at Turfway Park in March of this year. Since then, however, Barr said his connections noticed he wasn't really competitive at the same levels he had been before, finishing third in his last outing at an allowance at Mountaineer Park. Although he was sound, co-owners Dr. Arnaldo Monge and trainer Rey Hernandez agreed it was best to let the horse find a new job. Monge's wife, Thena, knew Barr and learned she had been casually looking for her own horse.

Barr has previously ridden hunter/jumpers and fell in love with dressage while working at Hilltop Farm in Maryland. She also worked for Millennium Farms, and has recently been trying to figure out whether her time there overlapped with time Finnick may have been on the property as a weanling. Barr keeps track of several of her favorite Thoroughbreds from her time at Millennium and was excited to hear from Thena Monge at just the right time.

Finnick arrived at his new home at BTE Stables in Paris, Ky., earlier this week and will get some letdown time before Barr decides what his next move is. Her tentative goal for now is the 2022 Retired Racehorse Project's Thoroughbred Makeover, contingent on his progress and their admittance to the competition. Barr said that for now, all doors are open to them. She is inclined to point for dressage and/or competitive trail with Finnick, but is happy to take him in whatever direction he expresses interest in, even if that includes hunters or eventing.

“I don't want to push him too hard on anything; I'll just take it real easy and see how he likes being a sport horse,” she said. “We'll go from there. If he's enjoying it we'll keep going, and if he doesn't seem to, maybe he'll be a trail horse, who knows.”

Barr watches Finnick in the field. Photo courtesy Erin O'Keefe

Finnick's right eye was removed when he was young due to a rare congenital cataract in the eye. Barr said that he doesn't seem to have any residual anxiety due to his limited vision, romping and playing around his new paddock comfortably.

“It really is amazing,” she said. “I've met a couple horses that only had one eye and were spooky on that one side [where the eye was missing]. When I first met him, we were all standing on that side and he didn't mind us being there. He would turn his head so he could see people but he had no problem with it at all. He gallops with his head tilted a little bit, I think so he has a greater range of vision, but other than that you'd have no idea.”

Whatever comes, Barr said she's just happy to be a part of the story she had followed so closely as a fan.

“It's been really great — I've just posted on social media in the past hour or so and there are so many people who remember him,” she said. “It's so cool that he has this built-in fan base. It just shows that you owe it to the horse to make sure he has a good landing and to continue letting him have a good story.”

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The Blueberry Bulletin Presented By Equine Equipment: Lessons From The Thoroughbred Makeover

Three weeks after the Thoroughbred Makeover and I'm still walking on air when I think about Blueberry's performance. My big goals going into the dressage competition at this year's Makeover had been that he be mentally prepared for the situation – two back-to-back dressage tests in the Rolex Stadium, a large and echoey structure unlike anyplace he had competed before – and that we not finish last.

Our scores on our two tests weren't the highest we've ever gotten, but they were solid and the tests themselves were the best we've ever put in. We came 40th out of a group of 89, many of whom were dressage professionals. I am thrilled with that outcome.

I started this series with a list of early lessons I took away from my first months with an off-track Thoroughbred (OTTB). (You can find that post here.) That seems like a good way to sum up the many things we learned from this wonderful, crazy, exhausting experience.

  • Last-minute hoof issues aren't necessarily the end of the world. Any time Blueberry experiences any kind of discomfort, he is pretty dramatic about it. We say he's a sensitive flower, which has its advantages in the dressage ring. I actually consider it a good thing that he's unafraid to express to me when he's in pain, because I know right away when something is wrong. This also meant that when he got his first hot nail (the first one my farrier has been responsible for in a decade working at my barn, just my luck), he acted like he was dying. Naturally, this happened about nine days before we were due to ship in to the Kentucky Horse Park. Initially we weren't sure whether he had a hot nail or a brewing abscess and I quickly learned that the former will resolve very quickly while the latter, though similarly minor in terms of seriousness, would probably take more than a week to get him back to full strength.We spent three days with his shoe off, diligently packing the foot round the clock and soaking it just before the farrier's recheck just in case he had both a hot nail and an abscess. In three days, the nail hole had closed clean and we were dealing with minor bruising from the time the shoe had been off. We practiced our Training 2 test two days before shipping, charging into the biggest horse show week with exactly two training sessions in the previous 10 days. By the time he arrived at the Park, he was sound, rested, and ready to go, if a little lighter on practice and fitness training than I had intended.

    So the next time I hear about a Derby prospect with a last-minute foot issue, I'm not going to throw them out until I know more about what's going on. A turnaround can be possible, even in what feels like the eleventh hour.

    A moment from our Training 2 test

  • Horses don't always fit into the timelines we've laid out. Ok, I knew this one already but I'd always thought of it upside down – that if anything, you have to move slowly doing anything with any horse just on principle. But that's not right for everyone. With a month or two to go until the Makeover, I was aware we'd need to step up from the Intro Level tests we'd been performing in competition to the Training Level 2 test we'd be required to do at Makeover. I also knew in advance that we'd only have one show prior to Makeover where we'd have a chance to ride that test. Each level contains three tests, which get progressively more difficult, so Training 2 is actually the fifth and most difficult test we've tried. With a few weeks to go, I still believed it was possible that after Makeover we'd need to step back down to Intro C, the test I figured we'd have been riding if we hadn't had the Makeover as a goal. The one time we competed Training 2, I forgot part of the test and missed a few key technical marks. We were still struggling to get our correct canter leads on the first try. It was — not quite a mess, but not an auspicious beginning.We got a lot of practice in during Makeover week, drilling Training 2 over and over. Leaving the Rolex, I knew I was sitting on a Training Level horse. In just a few short weeks, we belonged at that level. I didn't think we could both improve that quickly but we did.
  • A bored baby Thoroughbred in horse show stabling will eventually, with great determination and practice, find a way to poop into his water bucket. And his feed tub. My mare did not prepare me for this level of depravity. Gross, dude. He will also not learn from the experience and may do it again tomorrow if he has finessed his aim.
  • The notion that a seam ripper is a critical tool in your horse show kit is not a suggestion. I had Blueberry professionally braided because my braids are absolutely awful and I wanted him to look amazing. He did, and the braider sewed the braids in (which explained how they stayed in so well, no matter how he rubbed his neck along the door frame). She did a beautiful job. I reluctantly took them out at the end of the evening, in the dark, carefully hunting for black thread with bandage scissors so as not to cut holes in his mane. When eventers (at least the eventers I know) braid, it's usually with bands that are easy to pull, but the hunters mean business, even when they do button braids. Seam ripper = vital equipment next time.
  • Do not underestimate the bombproof nature of a well-behaved 4-year-old Thoroughbred. Our stabling for the Makeover faced out onto one of the busiest parts of the park for vehicle and foot traffic. We hacked through the show grounds and around the edges of the cross country course to get to our schooling area every day. Although Blueberry had been to small horse shows many times before this, he had to see and hear a lot during this particular week, and he feared nothing. Other horses spooking, bolting, galloping cross country, dogs, golf carts, backfiring tractors – he thought about none of it. Even the echoey Rolex grandstand and brightly-decorated judges' booths were of very little concern to him.The only thing he looked at was the giant rack of colorful jump poles that was being unloaded by volunteers on our first day at the Park and must have looked to him a little like windmills looked to Don Quixote. Fair enough. He stared, planted his feet, and shook in his bell boots. I was nervous, not knowing if he would try to bolt. I considered dismounting, but I sat still in the saddle. I patted him. I let him think for a few minutes, trying consciously to lower my own heart rate. He took a breath, chomped on his bit, and decided to believe me when I promised him they were safe. Is there a greater feeling than your horse saying, 'I trust you'?

    All smiles after our second and final dressage test at the Makeover.

  • The greatest lessons sometimes evolve from a tough warm-up. Blueberry handled the atmosphere of the Rolex Stadium brilliantly, but we did have a bobble in our first schooling session on Monday, several days before our competition on Thursday. We were running through our test and were just passing the judge's booth when someone dropped something inside the grandstand. It sounded like something heavy, maybe a folding table, making a big, echoey boom. I watched Blueberry's ear move towards it, process, and ignore the sound … but unfortunately, about two steps later, it was time for me to ask for a left lead canter. I wanted the transition to be sharp, and I rotated my knee about a half inch too far, touching him gently with more spur than heel instead of the other way around. I don't know if it was the sonic boom or the unexpected spur poke, but he took off bucking. It was a short episode and I sat it well, but I did have long enough to think about how much I did not want to fall and have my horse run loose through one of the more famous outdoor arenas in this country.I can't lie – this moment rattled me. I spent two days overanalyzing it, and then I realized that 1) He had almost certainly been reacting out of indignation and not fear 2) He had almost certainly forgotten about it as soon as I sat up, gathered my reins, and taken us through a 20-meter circle still in the canter and 3) I came out of this moment just fine. I didn't even lose a stirrup.

    All along this journey I have doubted myself more than Blueberry – am I a good enough rider to teach him this new sport? Do I know him well enough to read his moods and his emotional needs? Am I capable of putting the pieces back together when things go wrong? And thanks to our amazing support team – my husband, my trainer, my barn friends – I came away from that schooling session eventually recognizing that my horse has faith in me, and I should, too. (It helped that after a couple of days of long workouts and daily walks around the park, he was also probably too tired for a repeat.) This is something that I know will come up again and again. Unshakable confidence doesn't grow overnight, but it does come through repeated good experiences, and I know Blueberry can give me those.

The post The Blueberry Bulletin Presented By Equine Equipment: Lessons From The Thoroughbred Makeover appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Thoroughbred Makeover Diaries Presented By Excel Equine: Dressage As Relationship Counseling For An OTTB And Her Human

My wife gave me permission to cheat on her during the holidays.

In fact, she facilitated it.

You see, before Ashley became my wife on July 23, 2020, she was my trainer for learning to ride horses. I took my first lesson with Ashley on May 30, 2015, and immediately fell in love with eventing on OTTBs. A few years later, I fell in love with her.

Ashley has remained my trainer, and, in some ways, the trainer-student relationship can be trickier than husband-wife. For Christmas and Hanukkah, Ashley arranged for me to take dressage lessons with other trainers.

As I've started to move up the eventing levels, my Achilles' heel has been dressage. That's the first discipline in eventing based on the movement and rhythm of the horse on the flat that sets a rider's initial score. After dressage, penalties can be accumulated for jumping or time faults in the cross country and stadium jumping phases.

I've placed in the ribbons in three of my last four events, even while moving up from the Beginner Novice level where the jumps are at a maximum height of 2-feet-7 to the Novice level of 2-feet-11. I've always been at or near the bottom of the standings after dressage. 11th of 16, 11th of 18, and 10th of 11. However, after clean jumping rounds in cross country and stadium jumping, I've improved those placings to 7th of 16, 6th of 18, and 5th of 11.

“His jumping has progressed so much, and dressage is what's keeping him out of the top placings,” Ashley wrote when she reached out to four different trainers in the area. “He is finishing on his dressage score; it's just a bad dressage score.”

“Dressage is the ultimate expression of horse training and elegance,” the FEI, the international governing body for equestrian sports, describes on its website. “Often compared to ballet, the intense connection between both human and equine athletes is a thing of beauty to behold.”

How is this achieved?

 

What your riders are trying to remember as they enter the dressage court to compete? Is there anything you would add?

Posted by Dressage Instructors Network on Saturday, January 9, 2021

 

That's 23 things! And we haven't even gotten to the actual movements in a dressage test, like a 20-meter trot circle, a free walk across the diagonal, or a serpentine. How am I supposed to “just relax”?! Not cool, Dressage Instructors Network.

Dressage serves as a foundation for proper riding that can apply to any equestrian sport. Putting in the hard work to establish a foundation will pay dividends in the long run for building a relationship, whether it's with horses…or humans.

Simone Windeler, The Elegant Rider 

My first dressage lesson in this experiment Ashley arranged with other trainers was with Simone Windeler on Dec. 27.  Simone arrived at our farm promptly for our 2:15 p.m. lesson, walked into our arena as I was finishing warming up my chestnut OTTB mare Sorority Girl (Jockey Club name: Grand Moony), and zipped up her blue “The Elegant Rider” puffy jacket with the same confidence that Superman would have used to put on his blue suit, ready to save the world — or in this case, me.

The author with Simone Windeler

Windeler's credentials also happen to match the aura she exudes as a dressage superhero. Classical German training. Graduate studies at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland. Board member for the Rocky Mountain Dressage Society. Well-respected judge for dressage and western dressage. Windeler judged dressage tests of mine at the Mariah Farms schooling show series that represented my very first horse shows in 2016.

Windeler began our lesson by asking me to ride around the arena at the walk, trot, and canter to assess. After about five minutes of just observing, she called us into the middle of the arena. Her diagnosis: I ride with tension that inhibits my ability to communicate effective signals and cues for what I would like my horse to do. The tension affects my mare's ability to develop a proper frame and rhythm, and that ultimately will limit our ability to reach our full potential together.

Although Windeler was focusing on my dressage, her diagnosis applies my life in general.

So, Windeler went to work on me. We focused on breathing exercises and balance exercises. My hour lesson was ridden almost exclusively at the walk, with a few minutes of trot at the end. Nothing fancy, but instead focusing on how a solid foundation helps build a strong house and not a house of cards.

Windeler walked either next to or right behind Sorority Girl and me for most of our lesson. She helped me become less tense by having me follow a breathing technique of taking in multiple breaths through the nose and letting out that number of breaths plus one additional one through the mouth. She helped me become more balanced by having me imagine that the sensation of my two seat bones touching the saddle was like squeezing two pieces of whatever fruit I imagined. Then, based on my assessment of where those two pieces of fruit were positioned in relation to my body and the saddle, we adjusted my position.

It was all subtle, but so is riding a chestnut OTTB mare, where one slight shift in weight can make a big difference for the horse.

“You think you're leaning forward, but you're really just straight,” Windeler said during one of our better trot circles toward the end of the lesson.

Windeler helped build me up to a position that, while feeling different for me, was actually better for the partnership with my horse. My mare showed her appreciation for my ability to be a better partner.

Sara Storch, SS Equestrian

“That's a great wife; I wish my husband took dressage lessons,” Sara Storch said as our lesson on Jan. 12 at 2:30 p.m. began.

Now, I'm definitely a believer that these dressage lessons have more to them than just dressage.

Storch is a high-level dressage rider, recognized by her earning United States Dressage Federation bronze and silver medals. She trains at Happenstance Barn in Parker, Colo., and the four-mile drive there from our farm represented the first time I've ever driven Ashley's truck and trailer. Now that's some serious trust by my wife.

The lesson with Storch was about building a toolbox and pulling out certain tools to address situations that come up during our riding. What was educational and encouraging for me is that none of these tools force a result. Rather, they are actions that guide the horse toward the desired outcome.

Sorority Girl looks slightly skeptical of Horowitz's lesson from Sara Storch

For example, one was giving my reins, which encourages the horse to seek contact and round into a proper frame. I had been trying to force the contact and frame by pulling on the reins. Another was using the inside leg during a transition to guide the horse's body to steady contact on the outside rein.

My mare, whose name of Sorority Girl accurately represents her approach to being told what to do, responded positively to the signals I was giving. You can't actually force a 1,000-pound animal to do something they don't want to, such as when one of my favorite horses, the legendary Australian sprinter Chautauqua (hyperlink: ), ultimately refused to leave the starting gate in the final race of his career. So, what's more effective is figuring out how to build a relationship and take action together as a team.

Kim Wendel, Kim Wendel Eventing

Up until this point in my dressage lesson medley, my two lessons had been with dressage-specific trainers, meaning that their equine focus is dressage. However, dressage is just one piece of the eventing puzzle, and sometimes it's an overlooked one.

“When I was riding in the lower levels, I felt like [dressage] was something we had to do before we jumped, and it was a little bit of a burden,” Kim Wendel, my next trainer, said. “As time has gone on and I'm able to do some of the more interesting or technical moves, then I feel like I really start to enjoy dressage as its own discipline.”

Wendel has risen up the eventing ranks with her 2011 grey Thoroughbred gelding, Happily Twisted, whom I announced in his lone racing victory on Aug. 2, 2014, at Arapahoe Park in Colorado. Although she has more than three decades of riding experience, Wendel only began eventing in 2010. After buying Happily Twisted off the track in 2016, the pair has risen as high as the CCCI 3* level with goals of higher in 2021.

“For better or worse, he's my creation and I'm his,” Wendel said about how her relationship with “Happy” is more like family growing up together.

When Wendel came to our farm on the morning of Jan. 13, we spent about 10 minutes before our lesson engaged in a quasi “Dressage Anonymous” meeting where we shared about how we've come to appreciate dressage more through our struggles with it. On the other hand, non-horse people have an easier time appreciating what happens when a horse soars over a 3-foot jump than lengthens their stride at the trot, although the latter can actually be more difficult to achieve.

A lesson with Kim Wendel

“Dressage is kind of like the part everybody fast forwards when watching the [Kentucky Three-Day Event],” Wendel said. “When you splash through the water, wow, everyone likes the photo on Facebook, but then you put up a picture of you doing a nice half-pass, you get half the likes because it's not as dramatic.”

It's similar to how it's easier to define a couple's relationship by how they are at parties or on vacations around the world than how they are cleaning the house, or, in the case of Ashley and me, feeding horses and mucking stalls.

Wendel's lessons focus heavily on foundation.

“The beauty in it is knowing the details, but that's a hard sell,” she said. “For me, the biggest thing is we all want to be better riders. In order to be better riders, we have to affect our horses positively. In dressage, in learning how my riding affects the horse's balance is a really big one.”

During our lesson, Wendel's focus for me was on how I could impact my horse's balance — from front to back, back to front, side to side, going to the left, and going to the right. She showed me how subtle movements — like opening my hand to the inside, giving the inside rein, and more — can make a big difference.

“She's super because as soon as you pushed your hands forward, she relaxed,” Wendel said during one part of the lesson.

Ryleigh Leavitt, RTL Eventing 

With my final lesson in this series of four with Ryleigh Leavitt on Jan. 22, I realized that all of the trainers were giving me similar advice but saying it in different ways.

“As a guy, I'm glad I'm hearing the same thing several different ways because now it will sink in about how important it is,” I joked, getting a laugh out of Leavitt, as well as my amused wife, who has appreciated the effect these lessons are having on me.

Leavitt is a native Coloradan now competing at the highest national eventing level, Advanced, aboard her 2007 bay Dutch Warmblood gelding MoonLight Crush.

“You want to look like you're sitting there looking pretty and making the horse do everything because that's the goal of dressage to show off the training,” Leavitt said. “You're doing a lot, but you're not showing it.”

Relationships with horses—and humans—are hard to build. When Ashley and I were married, our officiant joked, “You may now salute your bride,” and with that, I entered the dressage arena of marriage.

 

 

The post Thoroughbred Makeover Diaries Presented By Excel Equine: Dressage As Relationship Counseling For An OTTB And Her Human appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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