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Im thinking of buying a x race horse can they be retrained for riding pleasureand what do i need to2007-11-24 21:17:40

Taking all the other points into consideration, add this. When looking OTTB's find out how long they have been off the track as well. It takes a good 30 days for some of the things put into their systems to get them "race ready" out. So, if they are fresh off the track, its really hard to determine what the "real" horse is below the surface.

Good luck, they can be re trained. I love working with them and have never had a terrible experience with any of them. (however, I have been breaking and training horses for over 20 years) In fact, I bought one here a few years back, he was so laid back that I sold him to a beginner family (our family) but they adore that horse and go trail riding with him all over. Never a problem. So you see, it just depends on the horse itself. I've seen bigger idiots in horses that never laid foot on a track!

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Yes, they can be re trained. To do it you need a horse that is sound (many ex-race horses have severe injuryies that aren't readily obvious). You need the guidence of somone who has done this before. You need to be patient and confident enough not to panic no matter how fast the horse runs. You need to understand that on the track pulling on the reins makes the horse go FASTER, and that it will be much more challeging than training a horse from scratch, because they already have habits, and these habits are good in race horses and bad in riding horses.

You will need round pen, a safe arena, a helmet, and supervision from a trainer or instructor who has sucsessfuly re-trained multiple races horses.

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I have a race horse that was too slow for the track, and she's way to fast for my other horses. ;) But I bought her from a trainer already retrained. If I were you I would have a professional horse trainer work with the horse for a couple of months before you take her home.

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They can definitly be trained for other things. I know a friend who has a ex-racer and it is a gorgous jumper now. But first, make sure you can handle it. An ex-racer will have the speed to gallop and will have the star temperment if it was treated well. It might also think it is still a racer and is still in training and might start to gallop on you, so make sure you know how to gallop and stop an out of control horse. To train it you train like and old horse. You need to get him over poles, then small "Xes", and the verticals. Move up like you would with a child learning the ride.