underscore | Horse Racing Free Tips

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.'

[Story Continues Below]

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.

Source of original post

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.

The post The Blueberry Bulletin Presented By Equine Equipment: Lessons From A Draft Cross To An OTTB appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

The Blueberry Bulletin: A Young OTTB Learns His First Lessons In Retirement, And Teaches A Few

This is the first installment in a series following the early training of OTTB Underscore, fondly known as Blueberry. Blueberry was the subject of a popular column in the Paulick Report soon after editor-in-chief Natalie Voss adopted him via the Godolphin Lifetime Care Program in late 2020. You can read about his origin story here.

If you like a good OTTB training series, check out our Thoroughbred Makeover Diaries series, which tracks Jonathan Horowitz on his road to the 2021 Retired Racehorse Thoroughbred Makeover here.

Although I have spent many years writing about off-track Thoroughbreds (OTTBs), working professionally with on- and off-track Thoroughbreds, and cheering on friends with their OTTBs at horse shows, Blueberry is the first Thoroughbred who has been all mine.

When I took an internship and later a part-time job at the Secretariat Center some 13 years ago, the whole notion of working with off-track racehorses was somewhat different. Many people with OTTBs believed they needed to “restart” them, taking them back to the very beginning of training and almost rebreaking them to saddle, as if the experience would be entirely new and overwhelming for the horse otherwise. Now, from what I understand, the philosophy has shifted – it's best to capitalize on what the Thoroughbred already knows. They have been ridden before, they've trailered frequently, and they've been groomed, bathed, clipped and handwalked extensively through their lives. This isn't the same as starting a green horse, and the training trajectory shouldn't be the same.

Until now, my education as a horse owner comes from a Percheron/Thoroughbred cross mare named Jitterbug who I started under saddle when she was five years old and eventually brought through the lowest levels of eventing, dressage, and jumpers. She was a case who had to be taken from the ground up. Jitterbug was a formerly feral horse who spent her first three years with little to no human contact, and that has drastically impacted the way she has progressed in her training. Accepting a saddle and rider was no problem for her; taking instructions like 'Trot' and 'Turn' was a personal affront. She reminded me loudly and often that she was bigger, smarter, and faster than I am, and that working with me was always her choice and not her obligation. Some of this is down to being a mare, but a lot of it is down to having grown up independent of human kindness or authority. It took years and lots of help of my esteemed trainer Stephanie Calendrillo of Graystone Stable to even begin trotting crossrails, let alone polish her into the productive citizen she is today.

I already knew that Blueberry would have a different concept of the horse/human relationship and as we have begun our early ground work, he indeed tries very hard to do what he is asked. We've learned to lunge, ground drive, long line, walk forwards and backwards over poles, and have conquered minor skepticism of tarps, plastic, puddles, tires, umbrellas, and pool noodles – all with great ease. I think part of his success, besides his very hands-on beginning, was that I entered into each new task with some idea of what aspects could be new or unsettling for him, but behaved as though I expected him to be familiar with the new task.

Most racehorses haven't been crosstied in a grooming stall before, but this is common practice in riding stables. Almost all of them have become used to standing quietly while tied to the back wall in their stalls in the mornings, though. The main difference, I reasoned, would be pressure on two sides of the halter instead of one, but the principle would be the same – Blueberry should know that this was time to stand quietly, and that if he hit the slack on one tie, he could move himself easily to relieve that tension. On our first afternoon, I clipped him in, ensured the quick release hardware worked, and pulled the barn door closed just in case he became upset and broke out. Then I went to work grooming him as though this was perfectly ordinary. The first time he stepped to one side and felt the tension increase, I gently tapped his shoulder to direct him to move sideways to create slack. From there, I let him figure it out—and he did. We'd spend short periods in the grooming stall at first, and gradually increased our time there, sometimes taking a break from grooming for me to put equipment away so he would see that this is a time for relaxation.

Blueberry on his first day of long line work

We've progressed this way with each new obstacle or task, and through a combination of a great brain and past experience, he has met every expectation with minimal confusion and almost no anxiety.

That doesn't mean my years of study have left me without fault, of course. I had some idea of what to expect from a retired Thoroughbred based on my past experience, I thought, but I believed I came into the process relatively free of faulty preconceptions about what the experience would be like.

Well. Horses have a way of teaching you things about yourself that you didn't realize you needed to know, and mine has already taught me that I came in with a lot of management stereotypes in the back of my brain. Here are a few of the ones Blueberry pointed out by proving them wrong:

Thoroughbreds will struggle to gain weight. Blueberry arrived in late November with some race fitness to him still, about four weeks after his last breeze. For my purposes, I wanted him to gain a little weight but he didn't need much. He was going onto 24-hour turnout, and I assumed that with winter looming it would be an uphill battle to improve his condition even a little bit. In roughly a month, he looked fantastic with two modest grain meals a day. Granted, he lost some ground again during the extreme cold and precipitation in February, but made it up again similarly easily.
Thoroughbreds may struggle in extreme cold if they enter turnout mid-winter with a slick coat. I got a light sheet for Blueberry in December but found my draft mare's clothes were way too big for him so I had didn't have a ton of different blanket choices to work with at first. I worried about this — would he shiver and shake without a puffy medium weight and neck cover? No, as it turned out. In fact, he runs warm and even before his winter coat grew in, I had to be more cautious about letting him get overheated with a blanket than too cold without one.
Barefoot Thoroughbreds will immediately and constantly abscess and chip their feet, especially in a wet winter. Blueberry arrived barefoot and my plan is to keep him that way as long as I can to let his soles toughen up before he begins under saddle work in another couple of weeks. So far we've had one bruise in four months and while I anticipate he'll need shoes when he starts real work, that's a much better record than I thought we'd have.
Horses, including Thoroughbreds, are bonkers for treats. Did not imagine this was a misconception, but Blueberry tells me with great authority that only red and white mints are treats. Carrots, apples, horse cookies, green and white mints, and even candy canes (yes, that's right – a mint in a different shape) are not edible and must be thrown out of a grain pan immediately.

I believe that no matter what type of work you're doing, horse training is a two-way street: if the horse isn't also teaching you something, you're probably doing it wrong. So far, Blueberry is a patient, kind teacher and I hope to be the same for him as we progress in our journey together.

For more of Underscore's OTTB journey, follow his Facebook page.

The post The Blueberry Bulletin: A Young OTTB Learns His First Lessons In Retirement, And Teaches A Few appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Voss: When Racing Luck Continues Off The Track, Everybody Wins

It's so rare in this job that I get to write about a happy ending and a happy beginning at the same time, but as this annus horribilis comes to a close, I finally have my chance.

Six years ago, I wrote about a filly named Unspurned. She was the only horse in my time grooming at the Kentucky Thoroughbred auctions I ever lost my heart to, and while buyers at both Keeneland September and Fasig-Tipton October were charmed by her, she didn't meet her reserve at either auction. Her breeders raced her, and she gave them wins in the Grade 3 Whimsical and the Canadian filly classic Bison City Stakes in return. When she retired, owner/breeders Jay and Christine Hayden added her to their breeding program and sent her to Uncle Mo for her first mating. Her first foal was a colt, a plain bay born in Ontario who grew up just the right way to be entered in the 2018 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale.

I travel to Saratoga most summers for work and was eager to meet him but tempered my excitement, reminding myself that there was no guarantee he'd be like his mother. And even if he were, so what? The closest I'd probably be to him would be devouring Equibase Virtual Stable notifications. But as I lurked around the Cara Bloodstock barn, watching him process the chaotic sale grounds with a calm wisdom I could see he was a lot like her. Everyone who had known both horses agreed – same yearling, different wrapping paper.

None of us expected, when he stepped onto the green sand in the auction ring, that he'd bring $400,000. I was so pleased for the Haydens and consignor Bernard McCormack. When they told me Godolphin had signed the ticket, I couldn't have been happier for the horse. I knew about Godolphin's Lifetime Care Program, and that whether he became a world-beater or a slowpoke, he'd landed somewhere that he could get all the best opportunities in life. I nearly skipped down the East Avenue sidewalk that night.

As summer stretched into winter and then spring, I'd find myself wondering how he was doing. After his 2-year-old birthday, I wondered how quickly they'd bring him along. In the summer, I reached out to a contact I had in the Godolphin system, who kindly let me know he was at Keeneland with John Burke and arranged for me to visit him as he worked toward his first start – and again, after he had a setback and ended up back with Burke through the winter. One of Burke's riders told me he was the easiest horse in the barn because of how sensible he was. He seemed to charm everyone with his quiet, eager-to-please demeanor. Every time I saw him again, I was more fond of him.

Uncle Mo-Unspurned in the ring at Saratoga in 2018

Underscore, as he was named, made his one and only start for Brad Cox in a maiden special at Oaklawn Park as a 3-year-old, just before COVID-19 turned the world upside down. My husband and I shouted him home as he made a valiant effort under Joe Talamo but he did not care for having dirt thrown in his face and finished fourth.

He continued to be dogged by injuries, but thankfully minor ones. When the workout notifications would stop, I'd send an email with a timid reminder of my phone number and offer of help. They did not need to give me a six-figure underachiever. This was their very expensive horse. But I hoped I might be lucky enough to take him one day. I began picking up every robodial from an 859 area code, desperate not to miss a call from Godolphin's Lifetime Care program.

On Thanksgiving week, the email appeared in my inbox. Subject: Underscore.

I dropped everything. I think I dropped my laptop. The pen I'd been holding went flying. I frantically dialed my eventing coach and OTTB expert Stephanie Calendrillo to arrange boarding for him and in days, I was signing adoption contracts and he was turned out in a paddock on her farm.

Underscore in his racing days at Keeneland

He is just as kind and smart as he was when I met him two years ago in Saratoga. No one has spoiled his sweet heart. The past weeks have been a whirlwind of grooming, hand grazing and snuggling our new horse. Underscore, who is called Blueberry around the barn, will be on turnout this winter and begin training in the spring. I'll let him tell me what he wants his next career to be, but when we get access to an arena surface, we'll begin with the basics – ground driving, dressage, hacks in the field. For now, I'll still need to pinch myself every time I see that familiar little face waiting for me by the gate.

Blueberry and I both got incredibly lucky on this journey. He was lucky to be purchased by a stable large enough and well-funded enough to have its own in-house aftercare liaison. I was lucky to already be working with an eventing coach who had taken many great horses from that program and who could vouch for me when I said I wanted to adopt him. I was lucky that I'd gone to school with someone who worked for Godolphin and who ensured that my name and number were in the digital file that travels through the stable's system, so that if he retired without a stud deal, I'd be easy to reach. I was lucky that at every turn, when the very expensive colt came up with a slight bit of discomfort, his training team noticed immediately and consulted veterinary experts, ensuring minor injuries didn't turn into big problems – or catastrophic ones. I'm lucky that I know this because Godolphin gave me his medical records when I adopted him, along with a promise to take him back if my circumstances changed and I couldn't keep him.

As grateful as I am to the universe for letting me live out this dream, it strikes me that you shouldn't have to be 'lucky' to be able to find and help a horse you love.

I thought about this last week when I spoke to Caton Bredar about the efforts she and her husband Doug went to in order to claim and retire graded stakes winner Chocolate Ride. (You can read that story here.) The gelding's former connections agreed to pool their money to buy or claim the horse, Old Friends agreed to give him a spot, Brook Ledge was on standby to give him a ride to Kentucky, and the whole thing nearly fell apart because of the difficulty they had navigating the claiming system at Penn National. That isn't a criticism of Penn's policies, but it makes me wonder how many other people there are out there who would happily buy and retire a horse if only they could figure out how to do it.

One of my earliest introductions to racing was my love of Charismatic, and when he retired to stud I discovered and tracked his foals as best I could without the benefit of Equineline. I remember well the feeling of being emotionally invested in a horse, eager to help them out, and completely unequipped to figure out where they are or who to call to offer them a home if needed.

We at the Paulick Report frequently get emails from people in similar positions who have fallen in love with a racehorse from afar and don't know what to do when the Virtual Stable notifications stop coming. Sometimes, if they're lucky, I know who can help them get more information on the horse that won't stop running through their minds. Many times, I am at a loss—even with my reporter's rolodex.

Racing has come up with a way to try to connect people to horses in need, however. Thoroughbred Connect, a database hosted by The Jockey Club, allows people to enter their contact information alongside a horse's registered name and to make that information available to an owner or trainer looking to rehome the horse. It's supposed to be a way for those of us who don't have a friend in the barn or the stable office to let someone know we are here.

Since the program's creation in 2011, Thoroughbred Connect has generated 1,956 connection emails letting an owner know that someone wants to help find aftercare for a horse in their possession. There are 8,330 currently horses in the system with at least one user listing their contact information, offering to provide aftercare if needed.

Of course, there are still barriers. There is no way for The Jockey Club or anyone else to compel racing or breeding connections to check Thoroughbred Connect before rehoming a horse. After all, the system could be used by anyone who uses an email address to register, and some tracks would prefer trainers contact Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance-accredited facilities to rehome horses – also an excellent choice.

And too often, there's a disconnect between track people and non-track people. Bredar told me that there can be suspicion when someone calls a trainer out of the blue wanting a horse from their barn – reasonable and important suspicions like 'Is this person offering a suitable home or are they a horse trader with a meat buyer on speed dial?' and competitive suspicions like 'How do I know you don't want to take the horse and run him yourself?' I've also heard stories of trainers seizing upon a kind-hearted person's offer to retire a horse and charging exorbitant prices well above the horse's value, claiming to an unknowing non-racetracker that the horse is worth it. Even when a connection gets made between the two worlds, insiders and outsiders, there are a lot of ways for things to go wrong.

The one who loses out in those moments is the horse. The industry has come such a long way in aftercare just since I began writing about it seven years ago. It's so much easier for someone like me to adopt an ex-racehorse through an accredited facility or to buy one from a reputable trainer specializing in retraining OTTBs. Next, I'm hoping, owners and trainers can find ways to make it easier to connect with people in a horse's past who may have loved them. You've no idea the joy it can bring.

The post Voss: When Racing Luck Continues Off The Track, Everybody Wins appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post