From Racehorse to Ranch Horse

by Natalie Keller Reinert

There are very nice people in the world who refer to me as a "horse expert." Of course, I'm not a horse expert in my eyes, I'm a person who has spent most of my life learning as much as I possibly can about horses, and that makes me an active enthusiast at best. Yes I can saddle-break a baby and inseminate a mare and remove eyelid stitches and jump a preliminary cross-country course and perform reasonable tempi changes on a well-trained horse and yes, teach a young racehorse to break from the gate.

An expert to most folks, maybe. But to the most of the readers of this blog I'm probably just... maybe a slightly above-average horsewoman? (You can tell me in the comments, if you promise to be nice.)

I got an email a few weeks ago from a reader at my site, Retired Racehorse, asking me to write about Gate to Great and Off-Track Thoroughbreds (OTTBs) who are being retrained as Western horses.

It went something to the effect of: You write a lot about OTTBs competing in English disciplines, what about Western ones? They excel at everything.

At Gate to Great, they know Western OTTBs are totally a thing. Photo: Gate to Great/gatetogreat.com

And while Thoroughbreds do, obviously, excel at everything, because sheer athleticism, curiosity, drive, and intelligence are traits wanted in every discipline, I really had nothing to write about. Because I just don't know much about Western riding.

I've been in a Western saddle maybe four or five times in my life, and that probably includes pony rides as a small child. The last time I was in a Western saddle, on an Appaloosa mare, she reared up and flipped over on me. Accustomed to the relative ease of dismounting from a flat saddle (I was an exercise rider at the time, riding about ten two-year-old Thoroughbreds every morning on the racetrack) I floundered in the Western saddle's high horn and cantle, got whacked in the forehead with her solid-rock poll, and eventually found myself on the ground, out cold.

A good craftsman never blames her tools, to be sure, but in this case this wasn't my tool, it was the owner's tool, and I owed her money, so I got on her damn horse and... I guess I am a little angsty about that saddle.

I also knew a Thoroughbred who was a very successful barrel racer. His name was, fittingly, Rocket. And my first OTTB, Amarillo, learned about the Real World outside the racetrack by moving cattle from pasture to pasture in rural Florida. (One of my very few Western rides was my test ride on Amarillo. He was so awesome, despite my complete discomfort in the saddle, that I just galloped him around the arena and then told my mom he was the one. He was.)

So I looked up Gate to Great finally, because their name is starting to crop up everywhere, and I was starting to feel distinctly inexpert about the whole situation, which isn't great for a person who runs a blog called Retired Racehorse and ostensibly knows a whole lot about retired racehorses.

And you know what? It's kind of amazing. I'm starting to feel very left out of the whole Western Thoroughbred Revolution.



In this fantastic video, you get an introduction to Thoroughbreds working with cattle, and the one word that springs to my mind is fun. These horses are having so much fun. I want to be one of these horses and have as much fun as they're having. It's ridiculous.

The Gate to Great folks are even sending horses to the Retired Racehorse Training Project's Thoroughbred Makeover in October, and you won't believe what they have planned:

The event, named “Who Let the Cows Out?”, will pair celebrity jockeys with retired Thoroughbred racehorses from the Gate to Great training program of Newell, South Dakota to compete on the Pimlico track in a “team sorting” event.  Each team of two horses and riders will have a maximum of two minutes to sort a small herd of numbered cattle into a corral in numeric order.  The team with the fastest time and correct sorting order wins the competition. The event requires cow sense, teamwork and fast thinking on the part of both the horses and riders.    - Press Release from Retired Racehorse Training Project

I can't even believe that this is an actual thing. I also can't believe I'm not going to be there. The event, held on October 5-6 at Pimlico Racecourse in Maryland, is going to be amazing. I just have other plans I can't change! Oh the humanity!

So there you have it. From racehorse to ranch horse, and apparently having a blast doing it. I apologize to my original reader for having to send that letter and get my attention out of the English world and into the Western one. What can I say? For a "horse expert," I reckon I have a lot to learn.

What about you? Do you consider yourself a well-rounded equestrian, or are there elements of riding and training out there that have simply escaped you over the years? I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of  -- we all know the saying "Jack of all trades, master of none," right? But then again, I'm starting to think there are some horses out there who might laugh at that phrase. It's looking like some horses can literally do everything, and do it well!

Visit Gate to Great and see their wonderful videos and training stories at GatetoGreat.com

2012: Year of the Thoroughbred

by Natalie Keller Reinert

I hereby declare 2012 the Year of the Thoroughbred.

(I can do that. I have that power. Declarations and such.)

I write about Thoroughbreds, you know. It started out years ago with a blog about the broodmares and foals at my old Union Square Stables. Then it turned into Retired Racehorse Blog, all about my new project, a five year old retiree named Final Call. A couple more incarnations later, and I'm writing, as fast as my fingers will type, about the incredible advancements that Off-track Thoroughbreds (OTTBs) are making as they re-emerge into the limelight of the show-ring. Even my novel, The Head and Not The Heart, is about the special love a horsewoman bears for her Thoroughbreds.

And so it's a good time to be me. 

There is so much buzz about Thoroughbreds on the Internet, I'm surprised they haven't had a review in Pitchfork yet. And with websites like Off Track Thoroughbreds, Retired Racehorse Training Project, and The Thoroughbred Chronicles (not to mention my own humble site, Retired Racehorse Blog) picking up more and more hits every day from search terms like "Where to find a retired racehorse" and "What can a retired racehorse do" it's clear that the message is coming home to people: Retired racehorses can do... well... just about anything. 

Xlerate wins Horse of the Year at Barastoc,
Photo: Derek O'Leary

Consider Xlerate, who just a few days ago took home an unprecedented honor at the Barastoc Horse of the Year Show in Australia, winning both the Newcomer division and the Open Horse of the Year Division. Xlerate was a stakes horse who won a pretty penny in Hong Kong and Australia; six months ago he was eventing; now he is a champion show hack, showing gorgeous brilliance of movement and temperament. (In fact, seven other finalists for Open Horse of the Year were also Off-track Thoroughbreds.)

Consider the Retired Racehorse Trainer Challenge, presented by the Retired Racehorse Training Project. Headed by Steuart Pittman, the Maryland-based event rider who has stood at stud Thoroughbred stallion Salute the Truth, an OTTB who ran a few races before eventually eventing at the Advanced level, and a long time supporter of OTTBs, the Trainer Challenge took three Thoroughbreds, fresh off the track, and gave three trainers five weeks to put them together into something resembling a sporthorse. The video training diaries alone have attracted tens of thousands of views. 

Tens of thousands of views, of videos on how to train retired racehorses.

Something is happening here.

And it's happening on the backside, too.

The Jockey Club, once an organization formed merely to handle the breeding records of the hundreds of thousands of Thoroughbreds foaled each year, launched first Thoroughbred Connect, a database to connect racehorses with potential new owners, and then the Jockey Club Thoroughbred Incentive Program, which provides awards to OTTBs competing in a rainbow of disciplines. 

Some of the racing industry's heaviest hitters took part in the initial funding of the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, including Fasig-Tipton, the Breeders' Cup, and major racecourses, in an effort to provide accreditation and standards to after-care facilities, as well as provide fund-raising efforts.

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association has launched a website, NTRAaftercare.com, offering resources and best practices for both racehorse trainers seeking to retire their horses responsibly and potential purchasers and adopters. Their Aftercare subcommittee includes members of both the racing and sporthorse communities. 

The gap is being bridged. From the backside to the show-ring, the endless possibilities that arise from a racehorse's athletic and workmanlike background are being recognized. And I, for one, can barely keep up with all the links, e-mails, and phone calls from people who want to tell me more about the OTTBs in their life. 

So yes, I declare it. 2012 is the Year of the Thoroughbred. 

(I bet that means it goes by really fast.)