Ex racers ... Before and after pics PLEASE :)

This was my ex racer Maddie, sadly I don't own her anymore. She was such a lovely mare I do miss her

When we first got her
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Couple of months later
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all looking lovely, and not wishing to take anything away from what you have all achieved but I do think we need to remember that racing fit TB's do look 'thin' compared to most leisure horses that we see ;) Of course there are some that have been sold to homes who don't look after them properly before being bought by a HHoer who knows what they're doing but i do believe most are 'industry standard' rather than neglected hatracks. :)
 
I would also like to say that it is not the racing industry who let the horses drop off like the one on page one. The horses which are racing are fit athletes. They are extremely well looked after, fed, highly tuned and prepared to do an intense job. I do get sick to death with the look how poor this race horse is. Look at the photo of Toby at Pontey just above here and he looks a treat. His skin is healthy, coat is gleaming, he's fit and very well muscled. You have to realise that the amount of food they are getting when they are in training is very different to when they go to non racing people and are turned out with a scoop of pasture nuts (or similar) they will drop condition very quickly. They are also used to very tight routines and a lot of exercise and I think the aforementioned suggestions all contribute to why they lose condition when they leave the training yards. Some lovely horses on here and super to see that they have a life after racing :) Keep up rehoming racehorses is all I can say :D
 
Vetwrap said:
Crikey, ljohnsonsj, not being rude, but you really had some vision with Ella, didn't you? You obviously have a very good eye for potential. I would never have said they were the same horse!

They are all an absolute credit to you and testament to how putting in time and effort will reward you. Have to say that Pete is a stunning colour though...
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thankyou,shes took a long time! Was going to add some of the pics of her in her course of training, her napping and rearing was so bad at one stage i wondered just if i was fighting a loosing battle,she has so much attitude but now she uses it correctly she puts her all into her work :) i love the little mare! :)
 
A_H - spot on comment. There is a huge difference between fit racehorse and neglected racehorse. There have been very few TBs in training that I know who have truly not looked in good 'hard' condition. These horses have probably been ones with underlying issues going on - and not a reflection of the general standard that they are kept to.

My mare now doesn't look terribly much different as a 9yo as when I bought her as 5yo - mainly because she was race fit then, and she is race fit again!

Equally Pete looked fat and well when he came from his training yard, but being turned out 24/7 over the winter didn't exactly make him look great - and yes he did drop weight. However it did him a lot of good mentally and also did a lot of good for his legs - and lets be honest, no horse looks good with inches of winter coat on them, do they?
 
Fig arrived end of Dec 2011 and was really poor having been let down from racing and turned away.

Around 2 weeks later:
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Last weekend:
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I second A_H's comment. Ive nothing against the racing industry, I even went to a racing yard a few weeks ago and the horses are treated like royalty !! To be fair though if they weren't treated correctly they wouldn't win races? The girl I got toby of had only had him off the racetrack for just over 2 weeks and I know she never treated him badly, although he looks skinny and tired this was only due to the fact that he had been taken off the high protein feed which he got 2-3 times daily whilst training. This is why the majority of ex racers look this way and people gasp and are the first to judge and say 'Oh my god whats happened to him, was he neglected!?'
When I went to view him he was turned out with other horses in a massive field with really good grazing and was content.

If I could afford a brood of ex racers I would :D

SS x
 
Ibblebibble said:
all looking lovely, and not wishing to take anything away from what you have all achieved but I do think we need to remember that racing fit TB's do look 'thin' compared to most leisure horses that we see ;) Of course there are some that have been sold to homes who don't look after them properly before being bought by a HHoer who knows what they're doing but i do believe most are 'industry standard' rather than neglected hatracks. :)
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To a degree I totally agree with you... I'd not expect to see an olympic sprint athlete in anything really except a lean, muscular condition... :)

It can be difficult though I think in photographs sometimes to really see coat condition, feet, muscle tone, apathy etc that can be more 'in your face' in reality... Mine gained a grass belly that resembled a brood mare quite quickly and hid his ribs so he looked overweight at one point - no matter which camera angle I tried he just looked fat even though he had little muscle build up and was still terribly foot sore... My father's fabulous photography skills definitely skipped this generation... :D
 
Tom day one -
August 2009
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did an event 6 weeks later but dont have a pic without copyright :rolleyes:

April 2010 -
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last summer -
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present day -
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bought him as a project to turn around and make a quick buck but fell in love so sold my competition horse instead!!! :o
hoping the money tree will take off this season we can get some serious events under our belt.
 
I dont know if my mare used to race, I dont know a thing about her other than she got to the people I bought her off of a week before!
Here is a couple of months after I got her, So you can imagine the state of her when I did buy her!
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And this is her a few weeks ago (2 years later)-
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She has totally changed shape and is doing really well! Unofrtunately she was diagnosed with high Ringbone of the short pastern, DJD and Side bones a couple of weeks ago so wont doing any jumping/dressage or showing again but she is loving her new life as a happy hacker :)

P.S This is the first time I ahve posted photo's on here so it may not work!! lol
 
To understand Ex-racers you need to be able to understand them as Racehorses. As has previously been said they work to a tight regime, they work hard, very hard, they get fed 3-4 times per day on high energy, high protein feeds that suit the needs of their current job. Most horses flourish as they are being given the correct food-work ratio. It's when they leave training that things go pear shaped.

In the 3 photos I put up of Jeff you can clearly see the difference between regimes. Ok he is jumping a chase fence in the first one but you can see that he has a good topline, his coat is gleaming, he is stripped fit and racing.

In the 2nd photo he has no topling, no muscle structure and is just long and lanky. At the time this picture was taken he had been out in a field with all of the other "Holiday Horses" in the racing yard for 6-8weeks so was completely let down. He looked exactly as you would expect a horse to look that had gone from hard work and feed to being left to his own devices in a 30acre grass field with no food, hay or work.

The 3rd pic shows what I have done with him. He was back into hard work - but of a different kind. He was schooled on the flat to build up a Show horses topline and back end. Whilst he was fit he was a very different kind of fit and his food reflected that. He was being fed high protein feeds designed for weight gain, not energy or stamina. He was still being fed 4 times a day to build him up to that and then he dropped to 3times a day maintenance.

Racehorses in training aren't badly treated, they aren't thin, they aren't underweight they are just different from your bog standard happy hacker. If anything they are healthier for their racing lifestyles as any human would be for regular exercise and a good diet.
 
baker190 said:
Her registered name is Peugeot, no sire or Dam. Why's that?
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Ah! She doesn't have a Wetherby's passport. All horses that have been bred for racing whether they made it to the track or not have Wetherby's passports colour coded to the year they were born. If your horse has indeed been in training, or raced at some stage in her life then I am assuming her Wetherby's passport was lost or "misplaced" to disguise her past. She should have a microchip. Next time the vet is out get them to scan for one, you can then find out who she is. There is also the chance that she was never bred for racing and thus never registered with Wetherby's, she just happens to be a TB.
 
EKW said:
Ah! She doesn't have a Wetherby's passport. All horses that have been bred for racing whether they made it to the track or not have Wetherby's passports colour coded to the year they were born. If your horse has indeed been in training, or raced at some stage in her life then I am assuming her Wetherby's passport was lost or "misplaced" to disguise her past. She should have a microchip. Next time the vet is out get them to scan for one, you can then find out who she is. There is also the chance that she was never bred for racing and thus never registered with Wetherby's, she just happens to be a TB.
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Well this is the thing, her passport wasn't registered until 2005 when the passport law came in, and I am very aware that before then passports being "lost", "misplaced" or even "swapped for a similar horse" was common practise! It is also very blank- only her registered name, year of birth, the fact she is a TB, the first person to register her and a drawing with her markings in the back.
She also used to show some quite obvious race horse "signs" which is what got me thinking that this may have been the case. I have never really done anything with race horses so to be honest dont have much of a clue but a lot of people I knew pointed these things out without me having to mention it! Things like not standing still when someone got on and running off as soon as the rider was on, would not stand next to a mounting block, totally dead to the leg, trying to race others if we were out for a hack and going for a canter etc and diving to the boottom of her feed bowl when given to her incase another horse pushed her out of the way.

I honestly dont have a clue but it would be nice to know something about her past just to see where she has come from and what she has done before! I will most definitely get the vet to have a look for a chip when he is next out :)
 
Mine when I got her, rising 3 and 3 weeks after her 4th and final race

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This was today, had her 6 years this week. Not the best picture I'm afraid but all the ridden ones are pro and don't want to get the over eager button pushers excited ;)

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Doesn't look much difference to me :o


Don't know pics are so big ? Did resize them !
 
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This was taken 2 months after getting my lad, still quite ribby and no topline at all:
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6 months later:
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8 months:
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About 4 months ago:
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2 weeks ago:
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No jumping consistently double clears at 1.05 and training to elementary at home. Hoping to event this year if I get over my xc nerves. :)
 
Yeah came up with an article in horse and hound about when he won a race with Haddon Frost starting with 2-1 odds but the bookies just stopped taking bets on him. :P

Wish I could find some pictures of him racing though, I have a few in his last years with his previous owners but they're copyrighted and I can't find the website they came from.
 
Bloody hell, good googling skills.

I'm pretty sure that's him, got the right markings (or lack of) and the same facial expression he pulls. :L

Thank you very much! :D
 
Puzzles said:
I'm thoroughly enjoying this thread! It's inspiring my dream of bringing on an ex-racehorse!

How are keeping/riding ex-racers different to keeping other horses?
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It's hard to say as there are so many different types but really they're no different to 'normal' horses you get fizzy ones, calm ones, good doers, poor doers, nasty ones, friendly ones etc etc. As long as you manage you horse the way it needs you'll be fine.

Best of luck, I will warn you that TBs are addictive. :)
 
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We are currently at working on the balance and basic schooling stage. She loved a bit of walking backwards when first got her but already cut down on that in three days as she is just loving life. As you can tell, I spend a great amount of time patting and rewarding her. Been such a pleasure and I can't wait for the months to fly by for more improvement :D
 
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Kokopelli said:
Bloody hell, good googling skills.

I'm pretty sure that's him, got the right markings (or lack of) and the same facial expression he pulls. :L

Thank you very much! :D
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Trick is to add 'pony' after any pony name into google images... I did it when I was finding Reggie photos! (Something's Up otherwise draws some odd results, especially with safe search off!)
 
It never fails to amaze me what a great job people do with these ex-racehorses! It can take such a long time for them to get used to a 'normal' life out of a racing yard. It's a shame I don't have any of the little ones we had at the polo yard I worked at. The difference was phenomenal after a suprisingly short space of time. The three of them are now regular fixtures at matches & the gelding is even sweet enough to be ridden by the err...less than skilled patron :rolleyes: Seriously though, the horses in this thread look great and it's nice to see them doing something useful after racing.
 
Kokopelli said:
It's hard to say as there are so many different types but really they're no different to 'normal' horses you get fizzy ones, calm ones, good doers, poor doers, nasty ones, friendly ones etc etc. As long as you manage you horse the way it needs you'll be fine.

Best of luck, I will warn you that TBs are addictive. :)
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Thanks! :) I used to look after an ex-racehorse and ever since then it's been a niggle at te back of my mind! I'll ask this on a separate thread so as not to hijack this one...
 
Aces_High said:
I would also like to say that it is not the racing industry who let the horses drop off like the one on page one. The horses which are racing are fit athletes. They are extremely well looked after, fed, highly tuned and prepared to do an intense job. I do get sick to death with the look how poor this race horse is. Look at the photo of Toby at Pontey just above here and he looks a treat. His skin is healthy, coat is gleaming, he's fit and very well muscled. You have to realise that the amount of food they are getting when they are in training is very different to when they go to non racing people and are turned out with a scoop of pasture nuts (or similar) they will drop condition very quickly. They are also used to very tight routines and a lot of exercise and I think the aforementioned suggestions all contribute to why they lose condition when they leave the training yards. Some lovely horses on here and super to see that they have a life after racing :) Keep up rehoming racehorses is all I can say :D
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you put it so much better than i could :D
 
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