From race track to the trail

[Loribelle1@aol.com]

Hi all -

In response to Sylvia who inquired about retraining a horse off the track to
perform on the trail, I thought I would share my one & only experience.

I bought an appendix Quarter horse (half T-bred) as a 4 yr. old, ran in CA as
2-3 yr. old, was injured (ran into pipe & opened up his shoulder) & then laid
off for 1 yr. (also got gelded 10 days before I bought him).  Originally I
wanted him for dressage, but found out quickly he just needed to "get broke"
first.  

I started with ground manners - he had none - particularly working on his
right side.  Then, mounted work was interesting.  He was solid with
distractions that I would never think of, not herd bound & trailered great
(figure a lot of that was credit to his track experience).  Uneven ground made
him nervous, crossing water was pretty scary, downed tree limbs & saguaro
cactus terrified him.

He was the most athletic horse I ever had up to that point, so I put in easily
6 mos. of LSD in the mountains & desert.  Unfortunately, he had poor quality
hoof walls & it was costing a small fortune to keep him shod properly & then I
could not use him for NATRC (can now I hear) so felt since I too enjoy both
endurance & NATRC that I would sell him.  He now lives in a barn with air
conditioning in the summer, regular turn out & a young lady who loves him.

One more thing - this may or may not be track related - when we went to the
mountains for the summer, he was very uncomfortable with being on pasture &
living with the wildlife.  It was like starting all over with training when we
rode up there.  Probably just how he had lived up to that point - stalls, turn
out, level ground etc.

I guess the best thing to remember is to make no assumptions & just go about
your training as you would any youngster.

Hopefully the track experts on this list will also respond as this was just
one experience & could be related to any horse from any other sport.

Enjoy the process,

Lori, Sky & Packy
AZ