A rising 11-year-old with 77 starts to his name, a rehabbed tendon injury in his medical history, a windsucking habit and a tendency to scramble on the float is not the kind of off-the-track thoroughbred that attracts over 50 rehoming applications – or is it?
Meet Prize, one of 12 horses involved in the first round of Racing Victoria’s RESET program, a new pathway for Victorian thoroughbreds that have struggled to transition into the right home after they retire from their racing career.
Off-the-track thoroughbreds are renowned for their athleticism, intelligence and suitability for a range of disciplines; and when they’re under seven years old, retired sound, and have no known vices they are typically snapped up quickly with a second career as a performance horse on the cards. For horses like Prize who don’t fit this description, Racing Victoria’s RESET (Racehorse, Evaluation, Support, Education and Transition) program offers a safety net in the form of direct support and retraining, involving the RV Acknowledged Retrainer network.
Grace Chantler, an Acknowledged RV trainer based in Western Victoria, was pleasantly surprised when Prize walked off the truck to commence his RESET retraining program with her at Second Chance Horses in July this year.
“As soon as he arrived, I was taken back by how solid he was – he’s naturally a really big, warmblood type – and how quiet he was; he’d just walked into a new place and couldn’t care less about anything, he strutted in like he’d lived here for years! So that was the main thing that got me – how sensible and quiet he actually was,” Grace explains, adding: “I suppose horses like him who race until the age of 10, they’ve already been around, and done and seen a lot. Nothing’s really new to them any more.”
“He wasn’t overweight but
he was nice and fat!”
From that point on Prize continued to impress, with his cool nature and mature approach to his retraining allowing Grace to unlock his talent as a future performance horse faster than expected. As she explains, Prize had been spelling in the paddock at Wilde Racing for a few months and was in good condition when he arrived: “He wasn’t overweight but he was nice and fat! So I started with him the very next day. My first ride on him was bareback in a halter, I just jumped on him. That same day I had the flag and the umbrella and all that sort of stuff on him and he was absolutely fine. I tried to do desensitising work with him, but he simply wasn’t fussed by anything, so that went out the window! It wasn’t long at all before we could start retraining work under saddle and quickly found that he could really jump – something he’d done a bit of previously.”
When Grace posted a photo of Prize on her Second Chance Horses Facebook page shortly after his arrival, she was immediately contacted by people who had been involved with him during his racing career. “He had a long career and a few different trainers. He raced in Queensland and New South Wales, all over the place! I had jockey Melissa Julius contact me, I’ve run into her during trials at Casterton when I was clerk of the course, and she obviously had a lot to do with him while racing. From track riders that rode him when he was up in Queensland, to everyone else that worked with him, all have the same thing to say about him; that he’s got the best temperament and deserves a career off the track. It’s obvious that he’s been a well-mannered horse his whole career – people loved him.”
Such unanimously positive sentiments, combined with her own instant affinity with Prize, saw Grace scratching her head as to why the gelding hadn’t been snapped up earlier by someone keen to train him for a second career. “I really struggle to comprehend how he hadn’t found a home already!” Grace comments, before explaining she believed an initial rehoming attempt was made when he retired from the track earlier this year but it did not work out. The team at Wilde Racing, who trained Prize towards the end of his racing career, took him back, and when they heard about the RESET program he was a perfect candidate for involvement.
Grace is not at all bothered by Prize’s previous tendon injury or his windsucking habit, despite these being points on a resume that can cause others to shy away from investing time or money in an OTT thoroughbred. “He came back and raced after the tendon injury, which shows it wasn’t a career ending injury and if it repaired well enough to race, it’s a good sign. The tendon was rehabbed properly for him to come back into racing, so you know they’ve done everything right by him previously. I’ve just treated him like any other horse, and it’s never caused him a single drama. It is slightly thicker than the other legs, however, I’ve had off the track thoroughbreds with much worse looking tendons go on to compete happily, including in eventing.”
“I reckon windsuckers
make the best horses!”
As for the windsucking, it’s something Grace sees as a positive! “I believe most horses that are windsuckers are clever types who have found a way to cure their own stress or boredom, so if they’re a windsucker they’re going to be a clever horse in a lot of other areas too,” Grace explains. “None of my horses that wind suck, including one chronic one I have, suffer any weight or health issues; Prize is no exception and doesn’t require a collar. I think people need to look further into windsucking and how much of a non-issue it is before writing a horse off, as I reckon windsuckers make the best horses!”
Grace has instead been focusing on the areas she can help Prize the most with on his path towards a second career: his physical comfort and conditioning, and his training under saddle. Prize has enjoyed several sessions with Heather Wall from Elite Equine Bodywork to help his body as it starts to engage muscles that have never been used before. “That’s something I find really important, and even though Prize showed no signs of needing any work done, I’ve seen Heather’s work before and how much she improves horses. I said to Heather, ‘Can you just go over him and see if he needs anything?’ and she turned to me and said, ‘Is he struggling with his transitions at all?’ He was – she told me to see how he was in a few days – sure enough he was so much better after Heather had worked on him.”
Under saddle, Grace has been focusing on Prize’s dressage and jumping skills, while providing him with a varied training routine that’s even involved mustering cattle and a demonstration at a local Pony Club. Several times a week the pair partake in dressage lessons with Jenni Beulke, an element of Prize’s retraining that is benefiting Grace as well. “I’m no dressage rider myself,” Grace admits. “We’re really refining both his and my skills, which has been great for me as well!” Like everyone who meets Prize, Jenni has developed a soft spot for the charismatic gelding, as Grace explains. “She’s fallen in love with Prize, and is really invested in what’s happening with him and his future too.”
Prize is showing immense talent over jumps, with an exceptionally good back end and a great attitude. “When he was a racehorse he obviously schooled over the jumps occasionally to keep him fresh – so he really had to learn how to come back and not just bowl into the jump as flat out as he can. He learnt that very quickly; we just did a lot of grid work. We have been really working on refining his jumping skills, rather than just jumping for fun, but his natural jump is amazing,” Grace explains.
It’s hard for Grace to choose between Prize’s brain and his ability when asked about his greatest asset – as he possesses both a wonderful temperament and an athletic body! “Physically, he’s an exceptional horse,” she states. “However, the biggest thing is he’s very sound in the brain, so that’s his biggest asset; how sensible he is. That comes down to how well exposed he’s been in his first career, but he also has to be sensible in the head to have raced until he was 10. So everything should come together for him in that sense. He has the right temperament for it.”
Prize’s transformation from retired racehorse to future performance horse has been a joyous process for Grace, her network, and the team at Racing Victoria. It’s no surprise that when Grace put the word out that he was available for rehoming, she was inundated with enquiries and applications. After narrowing these down to a shortlist of suitable homes, the team at Racing Victoria went through the process of speaking to shortlisted applicants and checking their references, before those deemed suitable could visit Prize for a test ride.
“I get the easy part!” Grace laughs. After applicants visit Prize to meet him and have a test ride, Grace provides a report back to the RV team, in which she offers her opinion about whether they are the right match.
“I honestly believe he would try anything and be good at anything. Ideally, he would go eventing,” Grace explains, when asked what kind of future she sees for Prize. “He’s working so well on the flat, he loves going out on cross country and he can jump really well. So that covers three bases, but there’s no reason he couldn’t be a Pony Club horse or just do low-level showing… he’s quite good to look at, he has quite nice movement. There’s nothing he hasn’t done and done well. I’ve chucked everything at him. I’ve even taken him trail riding with a couple of horses, and a horse like him you’d expect to jig-jog the whole way, but he didn’t, he was happy to walk on the buckle.”
Applications have been received from all over Victoria and interstate, and when we spoke to Grace she was excited to advise that Prize was heading out on trial with a delightful young rider. “It seemed like a perfect match to me. She wasn’t the most experienced rider who applied, but she’s a very kind, soft rider, and that’s what he needs. Prize gets upset when he gets things wrong, he just needs someone who reaches down, gives him a pat and encourages him to keep going and get it right, and that’s exactly what she did when she rode him. She never got upset with him.”
All fingers and toes are crossed that Prize has found his perfect person. For Grace, it will be a bittersweet farewell; the end of one retraining journey, and the beginning of a new chapter for the charming Prize. There’s no doubt the success he enjoyed on the racetrack will not be the final achievements in this gelding’s performance career; a diamond in the rough, he looks set to become a fun, extremely capable and trusting partner for a young rider in the equestrian disciplines. We look forward to the next update!EQ
You can find out more about Racing Victoria’s RESET Program here.
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