rehoming a pin-fired race-horse

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I have been offered an ex-point to point horse who is 7 years old
and been pin-fired

they want him to go to a kind loving approved home and he will be gifted,
as he can no longer be raced

he is just coming back to ridden work

I dont agree with it at all and find it quite sickening,

But I am looking to give an ex racer a permanent loving home to,

Is it likely this horse will be able to stand up to ROR showing/
riding club/hacking and up to novice level dressage
or would he be more suitable for light hacking?

I would be grateful for anyones thoughts? :(
 
We bought one of our ex racers straight from training and he had ben pin fired. Couldnt really notice the scars in winter but in the summer very noticable. He never ever took to schooling but he would gallop flat out through open fields, he went hunting and would jump and in the 12 years we had him he was never lame. We lost him 18 months ago. So I dont think it affects them too much and has been said to make them stronger.
I agree its a barbaric practice but in the racing world it means they hopefully have an extended racing career.
 
One of mine is pin fired - i dont approve at all but its not the horses fault, a lot are pin fired before they get injured.

The only werid thing is that if you put mud cream on or something he fidgits badly until he realises its not burning him.

Bless its a horrid horrid thing to do to a horse
 
my old tb was pin and bar fired and he was never lame in 10 years ,he hacked and jumped and did dressage to medium. worst thing was he wasnt even a racer -the owner was just stupid enough to listen to an old school vet who thought it was a good thing:eek:
 
Thanks for info,

Although I was going to pay for a horse this time and I had saved up for a year
my last horse was a rescue and we had 8 fantastic years together

so I thought when I lost him I would take on another horse that 'needed' a home but not one that was completely knackered
 
You seem quite bitter? You wanted to give one a home that needed it but not one that completely knackered?? What a attitude, your not being forced to have him are you so if you don't like the fact he's pin fired don't bother. Tbh if he was mine with the way your writing I wouldn't give him to u.
 
He will be fine. Kudos to you and the owners who want this horse to have a nice home.

I called about one I bred last night. Her trainer was going to give me a call when she needed to be retired so I could buy her back and give her a good home.

He never did. Just got a text back saying, have no idea where she went to or what they did with her. I just hope she's safe and in a nice home. Would love to find her though. She was not pinfired.

Terri
 
thanks for all your kind and helpful replies
I didnt know anything about horses that have been pin-fired and didnt want to take on a horse that was going to have to spend the rest of its days lame/on painkillers in a livery yard, I dont want the horse to suffer

My last horse came from a man who died of cancer and had been neglected and was painfully thin, I persevered with him even though all my friends and the vets thought I was very mad and told me to have him put down, he turned out to be a lovely old horse in the end and I had him until sadly I lost him to a twisted gut at 28yrs
Me, my daughter and the vet sat crying in the menage at 2.30 am when he was put down and it was snowing but we didnt feel the cold
 
The pin firing itself won't cause any issues as it's basically a series of small burns. The problem comes from why he was fired in the first place. There will have been some sort of tendon injury most likely so before taking on this horse it would be worth spending the money to have it vetted and include scanning the leg with ultrasound in this to assess the damage and how well it has healed. Only this will tell you whether the leg will stand up to what you want to do. Another thing to consider is that it will almost certianly mean that all tendons and ligaments of both (front?) legs will be excluded from any insurance so any future injury will not be covered.

There are many fired horses out there working well at decent levels and many horses successfully rehabed from injury so have him scanned to know exactly where you stand before deciding anything would be my advice :)
 
thatsmygirl said:
You seem quite bitter? You wanted to give one a home that needed it but not one that completely knackered?? What a attitude, your not being forced to have him are you so if you don't like the fact he's pin fired don't bother. Tbh if he was mine with the way your writing I wouldn't give him to u.
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I wouldn't say she was bitter at all - just sensible, the op wants a horse she can ride and do things with, why would she deliberately take on a horse she knows will be lame constantly. It doesn't read like she doesn't 'like' the pin firing, more a request for information as she doesn't know much about it.
 
MyNutmeg - i wholly disagree - the majority of irish horses are or were pin fired as a matter of course , they would not wait for them to break down to fire. A lot of UK horses are often sent over the water to be done.

Not nice, but true.

i dont know if the irons or chemical is worst - i just know when the summer comes and i can see the dots on my boys legs i could sit and weep for him
 
Gingerwitch said:
MyNutmeg - i wholly disagree - the majority of irish horses are or were pin fired as a matter of course , they would not wait for them to break down to fire. A lot of UK horses are often sent over the water to be done.

Not nice, but true.

i dont know if the irons or chemical is worst - i just know when the summer comes and i can see the dots on my boys legs i could sit and weep for him
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Same with our little TB -he was pin fired because he once has sore shins (so I was told) We bought him from Ascot last June (£400) - the poorest and bloodiest horse of the whole sale (he had fallen over in the lorry coming over from Ireland) - 8 weeks later he was placed in his first ever HT - Sleeping Soundly - we call him Stan - stroppy git in the stable, but a star in all other ways.
 
aww - dressedkez - but there is nothing like the love of an ex racer TB - mine puts his ears back and looks like satans hell hound, and i walk up to him and say you want a bit of love and i cuddle him, and he stands there for shoving his nose into your arms and wanting to be cuddled - he is such a brave, giving, un thinking, nutter - i would not change a hair on his body !
 
mynutmeg said:
The pin firing itself won't cause any issues as it's basically a series of small burns. The problem comes from why he was fired in the first place. There will have been some sort of tendon injury most likely so before taking on this horse it would be worth spending the money to have it vetted and include scanning the leg with ultrasound in this to assess the damage and how well it has healed. Only this will tell you whether the leg will stand up to what you want to do. Another thing to consider is that it will almost certianly mean that all tendons and ligaments of both (front?) legs will be excluded from any insurance so any future injury will not be covered.

There are many fired horses out there working well at decent levels and many horses successfully rehabed from injury so have him scanned to know exactly where you stand before deciding anything would be my advice :)
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This. The firing will be done and dusted and won't cause any issues on a day to day basis. However, there is likely to be an underlying tendon injury (although as some other posters have said, some horses are fired as a matter of course :( ) so if there is a history of injury you'll have the same risks as taking on any other horse that has previously pulled a tendon or ligament.

The only thing I would say about looking after fired legs is that the scar tissue can be quite delicate. Ours had a bit of a re-tweak and the vet told us to bandage him while he healed. Everything in my gut said not to bandage him but I did, and the old fired scar tissue broke down meaning he now has horrid white marks on his legs.
 
Hi, nothing to add that hasn't already been said about pin firing, but if you want to show him RoR you may want to check the rules, I'm not certain but think that he has to have raced under rules to be shown RoR, p2p isn't under rules, so you may not be able to show him at anything other than local level, if that's a factor in your decision.

Good luck- my ex p2p mare was lovely to ride, mouth like cotton wool and so soft... Too soft bless her! But one of the best to have out hunting, quite happily let the whole field pass her and had no competitive bones in her body :D
 
My old hunter had been pin fired and he never had a days lameness in the time I owned him.

We jumped 1.10 tracks, dressage, cross country. Colic took him at the age of 18 and he was in full work and sound.

The scar tissue is stronger than the tendon; that is why they fire. I do not agree with the procedure but I would never have had my old lad if it wasn't for it. In time the scars fade an we did do showing.

As regards RoR I think they only have to be registered with wetherbys but I'd have to check that.
 
Physically there is no reason he will not stand up to what you want him to do. For RoR if he has noticeable scarring it will go against him at higher levels. Some of the lower level classes specify that racing-related blemishes will be overlooked but for RI and HOYS qualifiers a blemish is a blemish regardless of how it occurred and he willbe marked down for it.
 
For the ROR thing...

Horses must have raced, not just be wetherby's registered- However Point to Pointers ARE eligible, for all classes etc!!!

p.s Can you find out why he came out of racing... pin firing often isn't the reason, at the point to point yard we have had a few which had been pin-fired but retired for completely different reasons!
 
Gingerwitch said:
MyNutmeg - i wholly disagree - the majority of irish horses are or were pin fired as a matter of course , they would not wait for them to break down to fire. A lot of UK horses are often sent over the water to be done.

Not nice, but true.

i dont know if the irons or chemical is worst - i just know when the summer comes and i can see the dots on my boys legs i could sit and weep for him
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Thats dreadful, I wasn't aware it was so commonly done as I've always been taught it's completely pointless and redundant. Even so I would want the leg scanned to know for sure whether there was an underlying tendon injury
 
My lad has been pin fired on his splint bone. I didn't know what the marks were when I bought him, it was my farrier that pointed it out as maybe a reason for his dislike of being hot shod (smell of burning perhaps). He's never had a problem from it and, thankfully, hasn't on his other foreleg which has a bowed tendon (the reason he stopped racing). So I wouldn't let it put me off at all. And he stands happliy to be hot shod now :-) Wouldn't change him for the world, big hairy beast that he is.
 
I worked in an equine clinic here in Italy way back in the early 80s. There was the vet, his wife and me so it was a very hands on job. We had many horses in to be pin fired, mostly racers but a few jumpers too.
Each horse was sedated and cross tied but I cant remember if they were anaesthetised (local) or not-they probably were. The area to be fired was shaved and and cleaned while the firing rod was heating up. They would then be fired. Not once did a horse make a fuss. After they were fired they were fitted with a cradle and taken back to their box where they were bedded on straw as it sticks less than shavings. The day after the firing legs would be very swollen and my job was to take a toothbrush and scrub in red mercury ointment which would cause a chemical reaction (blistering.) This was done daily for a few days till the grade of reaction desired was obtained. By this time the legs were like treetrunks and the smell coming from them could be found in my flat above the stables-it was pretty rough. After the red mercury treatment it was the turn of the pig fat which was rubed in by hand to remove scabbs, crusts etc and keep the skin soft, a rather smelly and nasty job unless like me, you like picking crusts :D The horses were walked out in hand and had a few mouthfuls of grass every day. Not once did I see a horse refuse to eat or show signs of pain while all of the above was going on and the majority were thin skinned Italian TBs and apt to die if left in a draft. All were followed up and all returned to the job they had been doing before and while I was there, none had reoccurring soundness issues on the fired limbs. The actual process isn't as horrific as it's painted and it does seem to help although that may well be the 6 months rest after-six months rest here in Italy in the 80s meant six months shut up in a box with a quick walk round the stableblock once a day. It doesn't 'horrify' me nor would it put me off buying a fired horse. Gift horses shouldn't be looked in the mouth :D
 
Gingerwitch said:
MyNutmeg - i wholly disagree - the majority of irish horses are or were pin fired as a matter of course , they would not wait for them to break down to fire. A lot of UK horses are often sent over the water to be done.

Not nice, but true.

i dont know if the irons or chemical is worst - i just know when the summer comes and i can see the dots on my boys legs i could sit and weep for him
Click to expand...

This is a load of tosh. As someone who is very involved in racing over here and pointing I can honestly say I have never seen a horse fired "as a matter of course". I have seen a few that were done due to injury, were sound as anything after and won races/raced again after firing. There are very few places that do fire horses over here any more....it's easier to get it done in the UK actually. I have certainly never heard of people sending horses here to be done...if you we're gonna spend that kind of money to transport it, fire it, rehab it and send it back would be far cheaper to just do irap!

OP we have had three through the yard that were fired. While all had various problems legs were not really an issue. We have one fella currently that was bar fired, the got caught in a gate and broke down again before he came to us. His bar firing is very minimal, no real solid scar from it so whoever did waste their time/money doing it didn't do it properly. We have rehabbed horse completely and when scanned by two different top vets both would declare him passing a vetting. I would not be out off an ex racer with fired legs, if the horse was nice and suited what I wanted I would take it on.
 
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