Initially, retraining a racehorse may sound like a daunting task. Your preconception may well be that you need to unwire everything the horse has already learned, in order to ensure they can cope with a life outside of racing. This often isn’t the case, which is why we’d like to highlight some of the best advice you can utilise in order to retrain your racehorse successfully.
Patience: Give Your Horse Time To Settle In
Many factors come into play here, including the time of year, your own situation and how long it has been since your racehorse stopped its racing career. Time and patience are the most important thing you can give your new horse, so it can settle into its surroundings. Horse’s are creatures of habit and so a change of home, lifestyle and owner is a lot of upheaval to cope with all at once. It also takes time for the body of an athlete to adjust to a slower pace of life – this is called “letting down”. The ex-racehorse is likely to be using different muscles and its muscles in a different way and so will gradually change shape but this takes time and so be prepared that it may take a year or more for your racehorse to change to a riding horse.
Ride Them Regularly
Perhaps they need a holiday immediately after leaving the track life and coming to you but once you start the re-training process, it is important to be consistent. Their musculature and attitude to work is only going to change if the work is consistent. If you can’t offer this then it’s often wiser to use the services of one of the British Horseracing Authority’s recommended re-trainers. They are specialists in preparing racehorses for a life outside racing and are ideal for the task at hand. It takes a lot of skill and experience to handle some ex-racehorses and so if you are an amateur, it is likely that you will have a more positive experience by working with a re-trainer
Be Careful What Horse Feed You Use
The quality of what goes into your horse is usually what you’ll get out of them. Diet and the horse food used is the most important factor when it comes to any horse’s welfare, and retraining a horse is a time of significant change that can increase the risk of digestive upsets. Many individuals make the error of “feeding them up”, which is an easy mistake to make as racehorses are usually lean, a reflection of their racing fit status. Racehorses are used to three meals a day at least, and they will have been fed horse feed designed to fuel high levels of work. This would typically be high in protein and quick release energy from starch which has been shown to increase the risk of gastric ulcers.
As the amount of work the horse is now doing will have decreased considerably, it is important to change to a lower energy horse feed. One that is high in fibre and low in starch is usually suitable. Additional oil can be added to help promote weight gain safely.
Give Them Time To Adjust To Your Leg Aids
Many ex-racehorses will have little understanding of the usual leg aids used with riding horses as jockeys ride with very short stirrups and tend to use the whip – not always making contact with the horse with it – to encourage the horse to go forward., so It may take the horse some time to adjust to the feel of a rider’s legs on their sides. This can be a somewhat tricky phase, but over time and with careful training, the horse will get used to you putting your leg on, keeping it there, and using it to convey that you want the horse to move forward. It is recommended to have a neck strap for you to hang on to just in case and if you aren’t experienced then always work with a trainer to help you. as you need to take care of your own safety as well as your horse's.
Overall, it will take your horse some time to adjust to its new way of life, but with the proper handling, attention, and patience, they’ll be living a life they enjoy once more.
