Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

recklessheartranch@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I had to chime in on this, if only to correct so many comments being made on this subject.
>
> I worked on various TB racetracks for over a decade when I was younger -- just about everything you could do on the track I did, with the exception of riding races (I did exercise horses in the morning, however). 
>
> There are SO many misconceptions about the racing world.
>
> First of all, most TBs bred on the better farms are handled ALOT from the day they are foaled. They are lead to and from stalls, paddocks, etc. almost from day one. Most of those youngsters get plenty of turnout till they go off for training...the nice TB breeding farms often have 5-10 acre (or more) pastures for the babies to run free in and they are only brought in at night or during rough weather.
>
> Even when they start training, some of those places have turn-out...I worked for several seasons in Aiken, SC, where there is (was?)a training facility to lay up injured horses and start the "babies." The babies were turned out in groups of 3-4 (according to gender)every afternoon in very large paddocks.
>
> Very few of those horses showed behavior problems, and most were total cream puffs.
>   
There is one large farm near Ocala that has a yearly open house and 
benefit for a fund for retired TB's. There is a barn for the young 
horses and during the open house most of the young horses are in their 
stalls sucking up the attention. They are all bright - none I saw showed 
any aggression - like you say cream puffs.

This place is huge 640 acres - one square mile. All the horses have turn 
out. Most of the young ones are turned out together.

However, my farrier worked at a TB barn in his younger days. He said it 
was the young ones that were the issue - it was the brood mares that 
gave him fits.

Truman

--

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a 
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also 
into you.”  Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil


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