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The Blueberry Bulletin Presented By Equine Equipment: My OTTB Did Not Fail

One of the first things I did after adopting Blueberry was to embark on a small online shopping spree for him (naturally, none of the draft cross mare's gear would fit him), followed by a small online shopping spree for myself. I found a t-shirt on Etsy which reads, “My OTTB ran slower than yours.” It made me chuckle, as the new owner of a horse who ran once and placed fourth.

Blueberry is by Uncle Mo, out of a graded stakes-winning mare. He had the mind of a racehorse, and we're told he showed such impressive speed in the mornings, his training team suggested he be nominated to stakes races at Woodbine before he'd even made a start. We joke sometimes about our “underachiever” who cost $400,000 as a yearling and won a little over $4,000 in return.

But the reality is, there's a little air of disappointment when racing people are asked about OTTBs. Many are eager to support aftercare in word and in deed, but there's often a wistful air if you ask them about a specific horse that has left their operation for a second career. 'Oh yes,' they may say. 'It's a shame they didn't work out.'

I get it; no one spends six figures in stud fees, or pays an Eclipse Award-winning trainer's day rates hoping to find out their horse is slow, or injury-prone, or briefly brilliant but eventually flat. Everyone wants to win the Kentucky Derby. Everyone wants to catch lightning in a bottle. Perhaps it's good that so many people in this sport wake every day with these stars in their eyes, continuing to breed, sell, buy, train, and care for the thousands of horses who support so many livelihoods. Everyone who has a role in a racehorse's life is subject to back-breaking work, long hours, lost money, and chasing sleep. There wouldn't be an industry to employ us all if we didn't have crazy dreams to make all of that worthwhile.

But the reality, which I know people understand just as keenly, is that there will be many more horses like Blueberry than American Pharoah. When I wrote about the challenges of aftercare in late 2019, 28 percent of Thoroughbreds born between 2005 and 2014 never even made it to the races. One Australian study found that about 40 percent of that country's racing population retired each year, with only 10 percent of those heading off to breeding careers. The 2020 American foal crop is estimated to be 19,010, but there were only 99 Grade 1 races held in North America last year – it's just a matter of logic that some horses will have a career on a breeding farm waiting them, but most of them will not.

The last few months of under saddle work with Blueberry have been a joy. I tell people that he makes me look a lot smarter than I am, because the level of dressage we're working on now is physically easy for him. Our trainer, Stephanie Calendrillo, told me at one point that she loves a horse who loves to work, who asks her when she encourages them to lift their backs and soften their jaws, 'How high do you want me to lift?' She said Blueberry does it for you and then asks 'Oh sorry, was that enough? Do you need me to do more?'

He loves going to work, but he's smart about it. I pulled him out of his stall for a morning ride this week – his first in a couple of weeks – and where others might have expended calories on exuberant bucks and hops, he was immediately quiet, focused, responding to the slightest twitch of my rein or heel. He does not waste energy (if anything, he can trend towards 'sleepy' rather than quick), and believes with all his heart he is a professional who has Done All Of This Before even when he hasn't.

Having known his mother, I'd hoped when I adopted him that he would have this mindset. I did not know, until about May when he began ground driving walk/trot/canter, how he moved, beyond having a very impressive walk at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale in 2018. In his first months with me, he was on 24-hour turnout while he recovered from some minor ligament desmitis and we awaited a stall and better weather at my trainer's main property. When I saw him stretch out at a trot and felt his floaty canter for the first few times, I used a few four-letter words. I hadn't just adopted a nice horse, I'd adopted a really nice horse.

I'm excited to bring him to the Thoroughbred Makeover next month, but I also recognize that it's just our first show season goal. There will be other seasons after this one, and I think he's just going to get better with time.

'I'm not surprised,' Stephanie told me. 'He's well-bred, and class is class, no matter what you're doing with them.'

Blueberry warming up at his second dressage show in July, where he would win his Intro C class and finish second in his Intro A class

I think it's time we change the conversation about these, the vast majority of the Thoroughbred foals born in this country each year. There were 27,700 races held in North America, which means there were fewer than 27,700 winners, but that doesn't mean that every horse who didn't win a race, or who found a non-breeding second career has failed – they were just a predictable part of the statistical picture of competitive racing.

By extension, we can also reframe the successes of the racing connections for those horses. Part of the goal of breeding Thoroughbreds is to create an athlete, and breeders Jay and Christine Hayden did that. One of the goals of a commercial consignor is to be a source for Thoroughbreds with a lot of potential, and Cara Bloodstock achieved that in selling him. One of the goals for responsible owners is to be caring stewards of their horses' welfare, and Godolphin did that, backing off on his training at the first sign of trouble and providing me a sound horse with no limitations on performance. One of a trainer's worries is ensuring that they keep their horses physically and also mentally sound, and Johnny Burke and Brad Cox ensured their staff preserved Blueberry's kind impression of humans, allowing me a relaxed 4-year-old gelding who sometimes gets groomed by my trainer's 4-year-old little girl.

Horses with second careers are simply those who found renewed purpose in a different job. When humans do this, it's called resilience. Let's give our OTTBs the same credit for finding their calling.

The post The Blueberry Bulletin Presented By Equine Equipment: My OTTB Did Not Fail appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The Blueberry Bulletin Presented By Equine Equipment: The Mental Side Of Riding A Young OTTB

This is the third installment in our monthly column from editor-in-chief Natalie Voss following her journey with her 2021 Thoroughbred Makeover hopeful Underscore, fondly known as Blueberry. Read previous editions in this series here and learn Blueberry's origin story and the author's long-running bond with this gelding and his family here. You can find Blueberry's Facebook page here.

Like a lot of other people, I've spent a lot of time this week absorbing the ongoing coverage of gymnast Simone Biles and her decision to withdraw from several Olympic events. Her choice has meant different things to different people, and has been a jumping off point for discussions about mental health, athlete image, and the unfathomable pressure surrounding Olympians. What I have found most interesting – and most understandable – was her discussion of the phenomenon she was experiencing that led to her decision.

As Biles has explained, she was not simply discouraged by a less-than-perfect performance early in the team competition: she was experiencing something gymnasts call “the twisties.” The twisties are apparently a phenomenon where a gymnast suddenly loses track of their position in the air, having no idea where the floor is in relation to their body. It's something many of them experience at some point, and apparently there is no straightforward cure. They have to break down their routines into smaller, simpler pieces and hope the feeling dissipates. Some move past it, and some can't. The twisties are more likely to happen in times of stress, and of course spur their own kind of stress. Imagine how terrifying it is to suddenly realize you may come crashing down out of the air onto your head because you don't know if your feet are pointed at the floor or the ceiling.

I can't pretend to know what it's like to be the greatest gymnast of all time, but I do think there's some degree of constructive delusion that's required for any dangerous, athletic endeavor. Biles knows that (particularly with her unique and difficult skills) she could end up dead or paralyzed if one of her routines goes wrong, but she must go out every time and suspend her awareness of the fact in order to do it successfully. Riding horses (at any level) is like that, too. You have to be aware that at any moment, the 1,000-pound beast beneath you could make today your last. But if you ride like you know it, you're going to make it more likely to happen, so you have to pretend that the stakes are low.

As Blueberry has advanced in his dressage training, I've had a lot of people ask me whether we're going to begin eventing once we get through the Retired Racehorse Project's Thoroughbred Makeover in October. I made the switch from riding hunters to eventing when I got my draft cross mare years ago. The horse loved it and I'm never sure whether I did or not.

When I was younger, I had no fear over fences. I jumped school ponies with sometimes reckless abandon through rollback turns and over skinnies. I was wary of a horse with a dirty stop, but not afraid, happy to push for a long takeoff or hold for a difficult turn. Then, in one of my first rides schooling a horse by myself, I had a crash. I was 18 and on board a willing little mare who had a lot of spunk. I spotted a skinny fence in a tough spot in the outdoor arena and thought, 'You know, I bet that's even harder if I jump it the opposite way from what we do in our lessons.'

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I had good, forward energy coming out of the very difficult turn I'd plotted for us. I saw a good spot. I did not see that there was no ground line on the jump coming from this direction. Without a pole on the ground to help create depth perception for her, the well-meaning mare saw the wrong take-off point, and the wrong height. She launched into the air a solid one and a half strides early, high enough that I had time to realize that something was wrong. I realized we were hurtling through the air way too high, returning to the ground in the general vicinity of the jump standard. We were going to fall. We were both going to fall. We were going to fall on top of the jump. And we did.

We were lucky – we hit the rails instead of the standard, and they collapsed under us. The horse hit the ground and tossed me clear of her. She crushed the rails but did not get them tangled between her legs, as I've seen horses do in similar falls. She ended up with a few scrapes on her knees, and I took the skin off my arms and face. Thankfully, the mare moved on in about a day, once again attacking fences with no fear. But I couldn't stop remembering the suspension of that constructive delusion. I realized how it felt to have made a mistake, lost control, and thought I was about to be seriously hurt as a result.

So far, Blueberry is progressing well in his blossoming dressage career. Photo by Joe Nevills

I've never quite let it go, even all these years later. My mare, Jitterbug, does not frankly care much about my anxiety and loves jumping so much she has covered for the many moments when I have frozen, unable to figure out where our bodies are in space, how many strides we have left, paralyzed in my own loop of fear. My legs come off her sides, my upper body curls forward and I forget to breathe. For a lot of horses, that's a really mixed message about whether you actually want them to jump or not. It comes and goes – sometimes I can tackle the most wicked bending line, and other times I have a mental breakdown over a crossrail. I can navigate a course; I was trained well before my accident. The trouble is, once you look into the face of your own vulnerability, it can be hard to access the muscle memory that lets you actually do the thing. The brain is trained to hang onto traumatic experiences so that you won't repeat them, and you don't get to pick and choose what to delete and when.

I worry that Blueberry may not be as resilient as my mare. Is it fair to someday ask him to learn to do this, knowing that I'm an unreliable partner on a jumper course? Will I train him to be fearful? He has the heart so many people rave about in off-track Thoroughbreds – eager to please, happy and trusting of whatever I ask him to do. I don't want to wreck that. I also don't want him to miss out on the opportunity to do something he may really enjoy, or deny myself the chance to work through my fear and enjoy something I used to be good at.

As long as we've got the Makeover in our sights, it's a moot point. He has made a fantastic start in his dressage career, winning two of three classes we've entered at local schooling shows and picking up a second place ribbon. We have lots to improve upon before October however, and there wouldn't be much time to work in baby crossrails even if we wanted to. At some point though, I'll have to decide whether I want to face my fears again.

The post The Blueberry Bulletin Presented By Equine Equipment: The Mental Side Of Riding A Young OTTB appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The Blueberry Bulletin Presented By Equine Equipment: Lessons From A Draft Cross To An OTTB

This is the second installment in our monthly column from editor-in-chief Natalie Voss following her journey with her 2021 Thoroughbred Makeover hopeful Underscore, fondly known as Blueberry. Read previous editions in this series here and learn Blueberry's origin story and the author's long-running bond with this gelding and his family here. You can find Blueberry's Facebook page here.

Horse racing is a sport predicated on comparisons – both of horses actively competing against each other and those generations apart. For some years, Racing Twitter loved nothing more than to pit two greats from different eras against each other in a theoretical race (Man o' War vs. Secretariat is the one that used to make the rounds) and ask which one would have won. It's a question people still love to ask jockeys and trainers who have been lucky enough to work with more than one top-level runner. The interviewee almost never has a very stunning or insightful answer and I frankly think that's because it's a ridiculous question.

As someone who rides, I have a keen sense for what unique individuals horses can be and that's probably why I've never found these comparisons all that interesting. Great horses are no more similar to each other than mediocre ones, so a lot of it has seemed like comparing apples, oranges, and bananas for me.

And yet, I find myself doing exactly the same thing in my own riding life.

Although I've been riding my whole life, Blueberry is just the second horse who has been my own. My first is an opinionated Percheron/Thoroughbred cross mare named Jitterbug, who I have written about here before. She was a neglect case in her youth, essentially feral until the age of three. I began working with her when she was five and unbroke. While teaching her to carry a saddle and rider was surprisingly easy, it took years for her to become a reliable mount with a solid walk/trot/canter who could reasonably be said to stand for the farrier, bathe, tie, clip, load – the most basic list of skills you see in most sale ads. She has been a challenging ride, made more challenging by the fact I encountered her at a time I was retraining my hunt seat to dressage.

We have accomplished a lot together when I think about where she started – a buggy-eyed, rank individual of Too Much Weight and Too Much Brain, shuddering in the back of her stall the fall morning I first met her more than a decade ago. We've competed successfully in horse trials, combined tests, dressage and jumper classes; we've hacked many miles in the local parks and on hunter paces; she is now reliable enough to carry children around, as long as they have no ego at all and tell her how pretty she is. I cannot pretend that she has always been easy or good for me as a rider. Flatwork sessions on late nights under the arena lights have sometimes ended in frustrated tears. She's bigger than me, and she will never unlearn that. We know each other so well, we crawl into each other's brains and play chess over 20-meter trot circles. A lot of effort goes into minimal improvements in our dressage training, but I have to admit there were many times I had doubted she would be rideable at all so perhaps I should take what I can get.

Jitterbug is now 17, and Blueberry's arrival in my care after his retirement in November was impeccably timed. Jitterbug is partially leased by a kind family who ask relatively little of her, and she and I needed a break from pushing each other's buttons. As I've brought Blueberry along under saddle these last two months, it's been hard not to think about all the positive qualities he had that the big mare … well … doesn't. (A work ethic, for example.)

The author with the big mare

I'm trying to reframe this way of thinking, as I don't think it's totally fair to the OG. So instead, I've been trying to think about the lessons one horse has taught me in order to prepare me for her polar opposite.

A horse with a good mind is worth their weight in gold. Mentality was more important to me than anything else when I began thinking about my next riding partner, and that's what attracted me to Blueberry. Jitterbug has kept me safe through fireworks shows, rogue wildlife, loose horses flying by us at horse shows, and all manners of klutzy moments as I've led her to and from the field in icy mud. So far, Blueberry has shown similar wisdom, tuning out galloping pals in neighboring paddocks on late evenings in the arena, staring placidly at loose horses at shows (it's a jungle out there) and learning to ignore a Most Unsettling Power Saw. He's an athletic little thing, but even if he moved like a giraffe, I'd know I was safe. As I get older, I have come to appreciate that I do not bounce so well when I hit the ground, and as such I value a horse that will avoid any unnecessary gravity checks.
At some point, if you chose well, your developing horse will outclass you. This discovery with Jitterbug came when she progressed from smaller fences to three-foot monsters and I realized suddenly that all that talk about a tight lower leg was not a suggestion based on aesthetics but practicality. That was several years into our journey together. In true OTTB fashion, Blueberry learns new things quickly both mentally and physically, so it was a matter of weeks before he went from doing the drunken sailor/baby horse wobbles around corners in the arena to proudly holding himself up. While he was getting stronger, I was staying basically the same and as soon as he was capable of taking bigger, more upright strides, I started looking like a beginner. Floppy lower legs, a wobbling core, weak wrists – it's all I can see when I watch video of us working together. I suspect all riders hate watching their own equitation but I'd forgotten just how much I hate it. I think I'd assumed I had more time to develop myself and now we're waiting on my fitness level to catch up to the 4-year-old greenie.
The answer to this is always to drop your stirrups and suffer through as much posting trot as you can. This is tougher once you get a horse with a Thoroughbred-sized stride, by the way. I hate this truth, but I can't escape it.
Smart horses will learn from you every moment, even when you aren't trying to teach them things. I can no longer blame my horses for immediately running out of gas after a nice transition from canter to trot. I apparently am so relieved to have kept a consistent position from one kind of bouncing gait to another that I immediately become a wet noodle, inadvertently suggesting 'You know, this is a great time for a nap.' All this time I had blamed the half Perch for halting a few steps after a lovely canter, and in fact I am the lazy one. Sorry, Jitter.
You're playing the long game here. It's easy to become discouraged when considering the above, especially when you're an amateur rider like I am, fitting in lessons and training rides around the edges of a full-time job. It's easy to feel like you're behind where you could or should be. Jitterbug has taught me though, that any real progress worth measuring takes place over months and years. I hope Blueberry and I will be partners for many years to come, and that means each of us will have periods of rapid progress and plateaus, both physical and mental. Yes, he seems like an easy ride right now, but we will have our struggles eventually. That's just life with horses. The more important thing will be looking at how far we've come, and working through those challenges as a team.

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The Blueberry Bulletin Presented By Equine Equipment: For Young OTTBs, The Only Constant Is Change

This is the second installment in our monthly column from editor-in-chief Natalie Voss following her journey with her 2021 Thoroughbred Makeover hopeful Underscore, fondly known as Blueberry. Read the first in this series here and learn Blueberry's origin story and the author's long-running bond with this gelding and his family here. You can find Blueberry's Facebook page here.

I spent a lot of time this winter staring at my new OTTB grazing in the field with a furrowed brow, trying to decide how I felt about his appearance. (Fortunately, Blueberry is the type of horse who easily tunes out distractions and grew used to me squinting at him with my head tilted to one side.) I can never decide if he's just a hair lighter than I want him to be or if the only real problem is that I'm too used to looking at my draft cross mare.

He has been easier to keep weight on than I would have guessed when I got him in late November, and he kept his slick coat and topline until just about January. In February, we got several rounds of ice, snow, and frigid temperatures and whatever muscle he had at the track evaporated as he was outside 24/7 and not yet under saddle. He was never thin exactly; just, as I kept telling my husband, “ratty.” He grew a scraggly, thin winter coat which also added to his somewhat bedraggled aura. We'd pulled his shoes in an effort to toughen his soles, and every time he'd take a short step over the driveway after a trim, I'd flinch even though he'd walk, trot and gallop around his paddock soundly.

Still, he was happy enough, bright-eyed, ate and drank plenty, and plodded along for our walks up and down the hilly paddock lanes. I knew, logically, he was healthy and doing well for a horse who had gone from the track to turnout at the start of a Kentucky winter. What I discovered during this period though, was that I was uncomfortable with the “ugly duckling” phase.

Blueberry encounters a crossrail on his first day at the new farm, early April

I am fortunate to have an OTTB expert in our trainer, Stephanie Calendrillo. She trains and resells off-track horses and will be headed to her third Thoroughbred Makeover this year with eventing star Dispatcher. Most of her clients' horses are also OTTBs, so she's used to managing the transition from track to arena. Don't worry about this, she told me. It's normal for a horse's body to change when he goes from track to pasture, but it'll change again when he begins under-saddle work, and it'll happen so quickly it will surprise you.

A lot of my writing on the Paulick Report is in our Horse Care section, where we try to educate readers about veterinary and management topics. Often, time is a key component to healing an injury, managing a chronic condition, or improving a horse's fitness. The unspoken aspect of this of course is that a horse isn't going to look perfect every day of their lives. As long as you're making progress toward your goal and are using good, expert guidance, an ugly duckling phase is unavoidable. Until I had Blueberry, I hadn't thought about that before. My draft mare was quite a challenge in her early days, but her issues were more behavioral than they ever were aesthetic because she has feet like hickory, is impervious to foolish outside influences like pathogens, and gets fat on air. I spend more time trying to get weight off her than on, and while she's always been round, no one has ever worried about whether she was being looked after. All I could think, looking at Blueberry's somewhat hollowed-out neck in March was, 'If I saw that horse, I'd wonder a little bit about what was going on there.'

After we moved him to Stephanie's main facility in April and began more intensive ground and under-saddle work, we were surprised at how quickly he became stronger, how fast he built up fitness at the trot and later, the canter. We added protein and rice bran oil to his diet to help him keep up with his new workload and improve his coat and skin. When he didn't shed his winter coat (even in late April) I finally had him clipped about two weeks into his new workout plan and lo, there was a slight topline there. We added front shoes, and when he'd still have the odd tender day, we added pads and his feet are growing quick and strong.

Blueberry in late May, under saddle during a schooling session at the Kentucky Horse Park

Then the spring rains came, and with them, some rain rot. I tried a little of this and that, over-the-counter lotions and soaps mainly. Then there were the hives, tiny little ones that didn't seem to itch or hurt, but which blanketed his neck and shoulders, then his back, then his rump and legs. We tried corticosteroids and antihistamines and the hives gave way to little crusty bumps like rain rot from hell. I tried new over-the-counter lotions, and it didn't seem to yield. He looked a mess, but at least a reasonably athletic mess. At last, we found the solution – baby oil to soften the scabs, which are now nearly gone, and a diluted alcohol solution on healed areas where water from baths and thunderstorms will drip, encouraging bacteria to fester (down the legs, down the rump and sides). A slick summer coat is growing in, a shiny, brilliant reddish brown – a tribute to his mother.

Even though he's improving now, I know this is a step on the journey. Stephanie tells me that OTTBs often spend a full year sometimes adjusting to new diets, routines, pasture compositions, weather, working different muscles from what they did on the track. It's not that they aren't healthy or functional during that time, just that they're going to change. He's starting to fill out into the horse I hoped I'd have one day, but I know these journeys aren't always linear. He may encounter some new need or struggle at some stage, and I now feel I can treat it as a learning process – and remember to be patient with us both.

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