The Thoroughbred: The Original Sport Horse Our guide to finding an off-the-track TB for dressage By AmBer HeintzBerger 38 July/August 2012 USDF ConneCtion
t he natural athleticism and refined beauty of the Toroughbred horse have been valued for centuries in horse sports. Warmbloods may dominate in today s dressage world, but check the pedigrees of many successful modern sport horses and there tends to be a great deal of Toroughbred blood running through their veins. over the years, some full-blood Toroughbreds have excelled in the dressage arena, even after successful racing careers. And prior to the development of the warmblood sport horse, Toroughbreds were the sport-horse breed and they continue to dominate in certain disciplines, such as eventing. Toroughbred enthusiasts prize the breed s stamina and heart. Although Toroughbreds fell out of favor for dressage for many years, some dressage riders are beginning to realize that the modern, refined warmblood is not necessarily so different from a nicely built Toroughbred and that Toroughbreds often can be had for less money. Toroughbreds come from all walks of life: small independent breeders, large-scale racing breeders, and successful and failed racehorses alike that are retired and ready for new careers. Some tbs come to dressage from other disciplines. Te hunter ranks may reject a good-moving horse that s not a great jumper, for instance; or a prospective event horse may lack the bravery needed to go cross-country. in this article, we ll explore the Toroughbred s history in dressage, and we ll offer some expert pointers on finding a suitable tb for the sport. POST PARADE: Te off-the-track Toroughbred Sea Lord s freestyle with rider Silva Martin at the 2011 PVDA Ride for Life featured (fittingly) a racing costume and a bugle call to the post CHRISTINA DALE/PHYXIUSPHOTOS.COM Success Stories Toroughbreds that make it to the grand Prix level in dressage tend to get a lot of attention these days. one of the most famous Toroughbred dressage horses of all time is the legendary Keen (money Broker mabel Victory), a 17.2-hand chestnut gelding who, deemed too big to race, found his career niche with Californian Hilda gurney. Te pair earned a team bronze medal at the 1976 olympic games and made their final olympic appearance in 1984, when Keen was eighteen. in 1997, Keen became one of the first two horses inducted into the roemer Foundation/USDF Hall of Fame. (Te other was Carol Lavell s partner gifted.) Fast-forward to 2011, when a 2001 off-the-track Toroughbred (ottb), Sea Lord (Sea Salute graceful glory), brought down the house with a grand Prix Freestyle to the Digital Edition Bonus Content Read the Roemer Foundation/USDF Hall of Fame tribute to Keen. USDF ConneCtion July/August 2012 39
LEgEnDARy PAiR: Hilda Gurney and Keen at the 1976 Olympics not CLOWning AROUnD: Melissa Creswick and her Grand Prixlevel OTTB, Mi Payaso, in 1983 music from Secretariat at the Potomac Valley Dressage Association s ride for Life show in maryland. rider and trainer Silva martin, West grove, PA, donned jockey silks; and the seventeen-hand gelding, owned by Charish Campbell, easton, md, sported blinkers and a racing saddle blanket. if you get a Toroughbred on your side, they ll do anything for you, says martin. She should know: Her husband, Boyd martin, competes the 2012 USeF international Horse of the year, neville Bardos, also an ex-racehorse, in eventing. Sea Lord himself was an event horse before the martins discovered his aptitude for dressage. Another dressage notable with a soft spot for Toroughbreds is Anne gribbons, of Chuluota, FL, an Fei 5* judge and the US equestrian Federation national dressage technical advisor. of the many horses that gribbons has trained to the grand Prix level, two were ottbs. Based on new york s Long island in the 1970s, gribbons was first paired with tappan zee, a seventeen-hand chestnut gelding by royal Charger who had raced until he EARLy PARTnER: Anne Gribbons and her off-the-track Toroughbred, Tappan Zee, in 1976 was seven years old and was gelded at eight. He was owned by mrs. Lois Stephens in ossining, new york, and trained by gordon miller to Prix St. georges, who sold him to study at Princeton, gribbons recalls. i trained him to grand Prix and earned my [USDF] gold medal, which was at that time hard to get. We went to the olympic trials in 1976. He was a phenomenally intelligent horse. gribbons second dressage tb was a big black gelding called Ad Astra ( stars in Latin), who had raced successfully until he was six. trained to Second Level when gribbons began riding him, Ad Astra went all the way up to grand Prix. He was very smart and he learned very fast, and was almost double-jointed, he was so athletic! gribbons says. once you get a Toroughbred organized, it s like riding a Ferrari. you think it and it happens. i love warmbloods who have a lot of Toroughbred blood; they love to work and tend to be very athletic. melissa Creswick, of Clovis, CA, taught and trained for 30 years and now has a private facility. She is a USeF S dressage judge and an r sport-horse-breeding judge, and she has served as a USDF region 7 director and as a California Dressage Society president. Her first grand Prix horse was a 16.2-hand chestnut ottb named galway Pub (racing room Bally Dugan), who had been a teaser stallion. He simply fell into my hands because i couldn t afford anything better, says Creswick. i rode him for eleven years and took him to grand Prix in the 1980s, before warmbloods were prevalent in this country. He had very sound conformation, even by today s standards, though i didn t know it at the time. i didn t really know what i was doing, but i kept on trying and working at it, and we had a trainer in the area. it took about eight years to get to grand Prix. Creswick rechristened her mount mi Payaso my clown in Spanish. At the time, all these horses were coming over from europe with fancy names, so i thought, Well, hell, i ll show him under something and they won t know what it means! she says. USDF ARCHIvES; COURTESY OF ANNE GRIBBONS; COURTESY OF MELISSA CRESWICK 40 July/August 2012 USDF ConneCtion
Where to Look for a Thoroughbred Are you interested in purchasing a Toroughbred? you can go the conventional horse-shopping route and search classified ads tbs abound in many parts of the country or you may be attracted to the idea of rescuing an ex-racehorse. outraged by stories of cast-off ex-racers being sold for slaughter, tb enthusiasts across the country have established adoption agencies and strive to promote recycled racers as riding horses. ex-racehorses can be purchased directly off the track or via a racehorse-adoption program. Te adoption route may well entail an approval process, and you may have to agree never to sell the horse and to return him to the program if you decide you can no longer keep him. However, some good sport-horse prospects have been found through these programs, and they may already have a good start in making the transition from racehorse to riding horse. Before you sign up with an adoption program or head to the local racetrack to pick up a young dressage prospect, consider a few key points. if you are inexperienced with Toroughbreds or with selecting a horse in general, you ll likely save time, money, and frustration by asking a dressage professional or an experienced friend to help you with your search. Suitability and Temperament one area that your expert can help to assess is the horse s suitability for dressage. For starters, to be happy in your desired discipline, the horse should enjoy the routine of arena work, says Anna morgan Ford, director of the new Vocations racehorse Adoption Program in marysville, oh (horseadoption.com), and author of Beyond the Track: Retraining the Toroughbred from Racehorse to Riding Horse. Tis might sound odd, but we have found that some ottbs do not thrive with arena work and get frustrated, Ford says. Tese horses are a minority, though; most do like the structured routine that dressage has to offer. gribbons loves the Toroughbred s sensitivity and ambitious nature, but she cautions that it can be a problem that they can get so ambitious that their brains begin to cook! you can t push them or they will self-destruct. Te high-pressure, unnatural racetrack environment leads some Toroughbreds to develop vices. Some, such as cribbing, may be difficult to break; other times, perceptive trainers recognize the reasons for the behavior and are able to eliminate the causes. Creswick s ottb, mi Payaso, had a biting problem that i had to stop. i gave him a towel to bite, and he ended up doing that until he got more secure in his training. Ulti- USDF ConneCtion July/August 2012 41
mately he became very confident. you had to be very fair or he d freak out. He was very insecure; he loved the ring but he couldn t stand to be out in the open. Creswick advises against choosing a neurotically speedoriented Toroughbred for dressage. if they can t focus, they re not going to be a good riding horse, she explains. At the sales, if the horse is watching his handler, you ve got a pretty good idea he ll be clued in to the alpha horse or whoever is on top. i want the horse to be accessible, or trainable. An easy way to test them is to get in their line of sight, then step off to the side. Do they follow you or ignore you? if they totally ignore you, your chances of getting them clued in are slim. it took Creswick a long time to teach mi Payaso to focus on his rider. it s a long journey, she says. if they ve been on the track, it s even harder because they ve been geared to run. if you buy a yearling that s never raced, the job is half what it would be with an ottb. Te typical Toroughbred temperament plays a key role in determining the best way to school him and to warm him up at shows. Creswick says that the more she did with mi Payaso, the hotter he d get, so she would give him frequent walk breaks between exercises and would mix things up in the work. Tat s how i d warm him up at a show, and he waited for me, Creswick says. i had half-halts, not pulling contests. She adds: i still have a lot of Toroughbred crosses. i like that little bit of fire, but i m a quiet, grounded rider, so it works out well. if i was a nervous rider, we d go into next week! Are You Right for a Thoroughbred? In considering the purchase of an ex-racehorse, the suitability issue goes both ways. Not only does the horse need to be able to handle the demands of dressage; but the rider also needs to possess adequate skill, tact, and patience. Thoroughbreds can get very tense, and at a certain point they can t stand pressure, explains top trainer Anne Gribbons. You have to be careful how much you push the buttons. If you get one off the track, expect to take more time with him; they anticipate a lot. Some Thoroughbreds are naturally very quiet, defying the stereotype of the fire-breathing racehorse; on the whole, however, a horse fresh off the track is best paired with an experienced rider. Ask a knowledgeable instructor if you re a good prospective match for an OTTB. Ford and other experts advise giving any ex-racer plenty of time to adjust to his new life and career. Doing so also allows any substances that may be in his system to be flushed out. As an example, a gelding may have been administered anabolic steroids, whose side effects include stallion-like behavioral tendencies. in the case of a newly gelded horse, it can take time for his hormone levels (and corresponding behavior) to settle down. Conformation and Gaits Although there are always exceptions, Toroughbreds bred for racing tend to be hot and sensitive, with thin skins and lighter builds than the typical warmblood. From there the similarities end, with ottbs coming in all shapes and sizes. your job as a buyer is to separate the dressage types from the individuals whose conformation and movement stamp them as better suited for another discipline. most dressage riders who adopt ottbs look for uphill conformation (withers higher than croups) and shorter backs, Ford says: Horses that are built downhill and/or are long-backed have a harder time with many of the dressage movements. Adopters tend to pay more attention to the hindquarters than the front, in that the horse should not be naturally weak behind and should have a decent overstep. (overstep, also called overstride or overtracking, refers to the desirable tendency of the hind feet to land in front of the hoofprints of the forefeet as the horse walks.) Creswick finds that Toroughbreds tend to be a little bit leaner and longer in the back than warmbloods. Sometimes they are too long in the back, and sometimes they don t have a lot of neck, she says. on the up side, most have a wonderful canter and a good walk, since walk and canter are related. Te trot, of course, is the only gait you can improve. if someone wants to train a Toroughbred, he has to have a better trot than the average warmblood, says gribbons. Tey can get tense about the walk, but the canter is usually good from all the galloping they do at the track. not surprisingly, however, you do have to teach them about brakes! if possible, watch the horse move at liberty, Ford suggests. you ll get a sense of how he naturally carries himself important to remember when you start riding, as newly retired racehorses tend to shorten or change their movement when under tack during the first month or two in their new careers. it takes time for them to be able to relax and move freely under tack, Ford explains. Seeing them loose will give you a good idea of how they will eventually move with further time and training. Tey should naturally engage and drive from their hind end, and they should have clean movement 42 July/August 2012 USDF ConneCtion
with no interference. i see dressage as equine ballet, so most [dressage] adopters are looking for a horse that is light on their feet and athletic. As in any horse purchase, you ll want to arrange for a prepurchase exam before you write a check for an ottb preferably by a veterinarian who s familiar with both typical racehorse issues and the demands of dressage. Certain types of injuries, such as bowed tendons, are common in racing. An experienced veterinarian can help you to determine if an old injury is likely to cause a problem in the horse s new career. But if the horse held up under the demands of racing, his history bodes well for his future soundness. The Classic Choice Unfortunately i haven t ridden a Toroughbred in a while, but i d never say no if someone offered me the ride on a fabulous-moving Toroughbred, gribbons says. Tey are intelligent, quick-thinking, and beautiful; and i ve had good experiences with them. s Amber Heintzberger is a freelance writer and photographer and the co-author of Beyond the track: retraining the Toroughbred from racehorse to riding Horse. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children. Anna Ford s OTTB Evaluation Checklist Anna Ford, director of the New Vocations horse-adoption program, offers this list of questions to ask yourself (and the trainer or the adoption representative) when you try a Thoroughbred off the track. Does the horse naturally bend and respond to leg pressure? Does the horse like to work? Does he get hotter with work? Does the horse enjoy working in an arena, or is he happier outside the arena, hacking around the farm? How long has the horse been off the track? When was his last race? How much turnout has the horse had? How much under-saddle training has the horse had? Did the horse stay sound while racing? Any old injuries I should know about? If the horse is a gelding, how long ago was he gelded? S&S Stables Karen Lewis Afton, Virginia, U.S.A. www.usprehorse.com 540-456-8520 or 540-256-1878 SS Stables specializes in breeding Iberian Sporthorses. Our bloodlines originate from Ejica, Spain, from the farm of Aquilino Moya and home of Juan Mañuel Muñoz Diaz. Our mares are registered in the Stud Book of Spain and bred to Stallions of Quality in the United States. We produce movement for the competitive Dressage arena and the Iberian willingness for the professional or amateur rider. Curiosa (2007 bay mare) will be in Lexington, Virginia, for the 2012 FEI 5-year-old test and 1st level classes. Spanish registry: ANCCE inscribed & revised. Call for more information, video, and sale price. Visit us and our horses at Dressage at Lexington, July 12-15 Barn 6, Virginia Horse Center, Lexington, Virginia, for wine, tapas, and demonstrations of Spanish equestrian skills. USDF ConneCtion July/August 2012 43