Never overlook an ex-racer
After reading Karen Dixon’s top tips for training ex-racers on the Your Horse website (bit.ly/2i0pDRI), I can vouch that ex-racehorses are worth the effort! When considering your next horse, don’t just rule out a Thoroughbred or ex-racehorse purely because of the stigma attached to them. If you’re prepared to put in the time, effort, money and a bit of patience, then an ex-racehorse will try their hardest to pay you back. They’re incredibly loyal, clever and willing, but you have to keep an open mind when retraining, especially if you take them straight off the track. They take a lot of confidence from their rider and doing groundwork is great for building up a relationship. Ex-racers are extremely versatile animals and will quite happily have a go at most disciplines. My horse Zippy (aka Anyone Can Whistle) competes in showing, dressage and jumping. We’ve also taken him to the beach with his stable buddy Lola and completed a long distance ride with 17 other retrained racehorses. Recently, we were invited by Retraining of Racehorses (RoR) to parade Zippy at Chepstow Racecourses Big Jumps Festival. It was an amazing opportunity to show off all the hard work we’d done retraining Zippy into a riding horse. He took everything in his stride that day, even with the racing going on at the same time and it really highlighted what an amazing partnership you can build with these gorgeous creatures. My boy is such a softie and, whatever we throw at him, from fancy dress to horse agility, he just trusts us and accepts that it’ll be fine – just proving an ex-racer can make an amazing horse. Kirsty Jenkins, Gloucestershire