Thoroughbreds! <3

[BobwhiteQuailLover]

After watching Secretariat, I LOVE Thoroughbreds and Horse Racing!

Can anyone post pics of theirs?
Has anyone here been to a race? How old/tall-short/heavy do you have to be to be a jockey?
This is my dream Colt

http://www.equinenow.com/horse-ad-379707

 

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

My My My. You have good taste in horses LOL What a beautful animal!!!!! My very first horse was a thoroughbred filly, bought her for $600.00 from some horse breeder/trainer friends of mine in Montana. She was very nicely bred but had a turned in hind foot so they gave her away...she ended up with my friends. In any event, I was in WAY over my head with her. She broke every halter that I put on her and she was extremely pushy -- all due to my very poor handling and "training" LOL She was also a very large filly at 18 months old she was 15.2. I sold her for a dollar to my neighbor who adored her and had lots of experience with problem horses (read: horses ruined by a teenager who thinks she can train a horse). All was not lost though, she turned out to be a good horse later.

 

[BobwhiteQuailLover]

Hah!
I

Thorougbreds!

 

[Jasmine1998]

Here was our Off Track TB Cody.


He was only 1 year off from racing here...and the most dead quiet TB I have ever met, just wanted to tuck his head in your arm & be loved. He had 30 starts & won about $46,000 on the track. He has a canter to die for. He has now moved on to his 2nd career as an eventing horse & lives a few miles down the road from us.

Here is his breeding: http://www.pedigreequery.com/crafty+ruckus

 

[ChickenWisperer]

I loved Secretariat too, but the movies don't show the dark side of horse racing (Quarter and Standardbred events included).

Hundreds of horses suffer fatal injuries. Those that aren't lucky enough are injured so that they can never breed or race again, and are sometimes killed outright or sold for slaughter. Horses too old to race anymore and not doing well in breeding are sometimes thrown away or sent to slaughter (those sent to slaugher include Charismatic, War Emblem, and Ferdinand to name a few famous ones). Horses are ridden far too young many times and it causes injury to their immature bodies. Some people employ poor, poor breeding of limited genetic diversity (only to produce the "fastest" horses) and it results in genetic defects and sometimes crippling hidden abnormalities.

TB's are beautiful animals, and racing can be an inspiring thing - but it is not all rainbows and sunshine like the movies make it to be. I'll never forget the time I was at Churchill Downs, watching the horses race. A horse went down on the track, and the jockey just walked off and left him there. He struggled to stand until the vet/others finally got over to him. They carted him away in a trailer. I will never forget that.

At Rainhill Equine Facility, they gave a home to Secret Pattern - a racehorse that had a minor injury and was going to be taken to slaughter. Her grandsire was Secretariat. I feel sorry for her - she is a gorgeous mare but has such a bad temperament. Here is a pic I took of her.

 

[19hhbelgian]

This is Stephie... She was on the track til she was 6 years old. Then she was a broodmare for 4 years. We got her because she wasn't able to produce anymore, and was gonna be put down. Wound up being a great, easy to ride no nonsense horse! I can literally let her sit for a year, throw a saddle on her, jump on and go. No fuss at all. I sold her once, but it didn't work out at that home and we took her back - I won't make the same mistake again... She's meant to stay here

I'm more of a QH/paint/draft horse kind of a person, but I do take in TB's and re-train them for new homes... Honestly have had very good experiences with them, but they are still higher maintenance than my main breeds

 

[19hhbelgian]

I'll rehab the horses because they deserve a new beginning after they're done racing, but one thing I will NEVER be involved in is racing. I'll let it at that

 

[patandchickens]

I love thoroughbreds, as a breed (indeed most of the horses I've owned have been off the track, and probably a majority of the many many horses i've worked with over the years have been TBs, some off the track but many just raised as normal horses for the hunters etc).

I have encountered some very ethical do-whats-right-for-the-horses-even-if-its-costly owners/riders/etc in the industry. For instance, the first horse I owned, who I bought when I got a job after grad school, had earned almost a quarter million dollars (not too bad for the mid 80s) racing only a few times per year off the farm, and after his 6 yr old year when he was no longer competitive in stakes company, the owner gave him to his exercise rider (who really liked the horse; not many people did, as frankly he was somewhat of an s.o.b.

) rather than drop him down into the claimers where he could quite definitely have earned them more money since he was still sound and not *sour* just slowing down a little. (I then bought him from her for meat price, essentially it not a sale but just 'finding a good home'.)

But this is not common, and I am "not impressed" (I am being polite here) with the TB racing industry as a whole, and would never in a million years want to be involved. (I think the same of most horse show disciplines at the nationally-competetive level, but less so)

You have to realize, it is an industry. For profit. Cut costs, cut losses, make decisions based on the bottom line. Not every person at every moment, but much or most of the time. It is quite expensive and generally a money-losing proposition to own and operate a racehorse, and especially since it has been democratized to the point where it is not just the super-wealthy owning racehorses, horse management tends to come up against 'the bottom line' on a very frequent basis. Economically-efficient strategies tend to dominate over whats-in-the-horses-best-interest strategies.

I do think it is *possible* to race horses reasonably ethically. There are doubtless a few people (with extremely deep pockets, I would guess, or a *true* love of horses and of eating beans and rice for life) doing it that way still today. But I do not see it as possible that the actual TB racing industry will ever, ever, ever operate in the best interests of the horses.

Also, IMHO you have to consider whether horses are capable of informed consent... yes, they WANT to run that fast, but given what we know about the likely consequences of it to their legs as time passes (sometimes years, sometimes just a millisecond), is it really appropriate for us to encourage them to DO it? I would liken it to many of the schemes that my 3 and 6 year old children come up with, any number of things they really WANT to do but have a good chance of ending badly in a life-changing or life-ending kind of way. They are not capable (in the case of my children, because they're too young; in the case of horses, because, well, they're *horses*) of really fully grasping the risks and consequences.

Sigh.

Well, to answer your actual question, though: to be a jockey you need to be abnormally short and light, like 110 lbs or so; also *crazy* (lol) and have an extremely philosophical attitude towards human nature and the vicissitudes of fate, and not to mind getting hurt a lot. Realistically, don't be thinking about being a jockey. Exercise rider is somewhat more of a realistic aspiration, as you merely need to be 'not large' (like maybe less than 150ish and not real tall), but you do need to have excellent horsemanship skills. And the aforementioned extremely philosophical attitude towards human nature, fate and injuries. There are a variety of different exercise-rider type 'niches' available, I've had friends who mainly started youngsters at the farm, others who worked exclusively at tracks, etc. Also of course there is being a groom in various contexts, which is not a well-paying or physically-easy profession but the people I know it absolutely LOVE their horses more than anything, which is why they put up with the pay and hours.

Honestly though if you just luv luv luv TBs there are a whale of a lot of better outlets for it than going into the racing industry, which tends to chew up *people* as well as horses.

JMHO,

Pat

 

[michickenwrangler]

A lot of what Pat said.

As a high schooler, I worked with 2 off the track thoroughbreds, one was 17.3hh!

The racing industry is quite ruthless and is quite romanticized by authors like Joanna Campbel et al of the Thoroughbred series. Jockeys do use whips (not cruelly) and pushing a horse for full speed really takes a lot out of them. But, the Thoroughbred series makes it seem ridiculously simple to get a horse to the Triple Crown or the Breeder's Cup. That's not the way it works. Many race bred TBs never make it to the track and many of those don't make it beyond claiming or allowance races.

Jockeys often suffer from anorexia and bulimia to try and maintain their weights. Thinner the better and some have gotten fired or lost mounts from being too heavy. For other track positions like groom and exercise rider, there is very little job security. Any sort of on the track work is extremely dangerous. Jockeys are often hurt or killed from horses falling or getting bumped, expecially if there are 15 other 1200lb shod thoroughbreds galloping at 40mph behind them.

Walter Farley's The Black Stallion series is probably the best young adult/youth series about horse racing if you want to read more about it.

 

[apdan]

Our TB we got for free, she was half dead just skin and bones. Injured her hip, couldn't race no more was thrown in a pasture to try to defend herself against 10 other horses. We have had her now for 4 years and while she is a bit stubborn and bull headed at times I wouldn't trade her for the world! We use her now for trail riding, when we got her she was 3 yrs old.