Firn's Blog post # 11

Are You Sure She's a Thoroughbred?


I asked this question with some bewilderment, staring at the quiet creature walking patiently on the other end of the lunging line.

"No," said the Horse Mutterer, dryly. "She's a trotter."

The mare's only protest at being lunged had been picking her front feet up like a dressage horse in full passage; she had never had exercise bandages on before, or if she had, it had been a couple of years ago. Magic Lady came off the racetrack two years ago after a successful career and went straight to stud without any further training. In the year that I'd known her, all she'd done was run in the pastures with a band of broodmares and, recently, her filly foal. Today was the day that I decided to start work on her. It was just before feeding time when I dragged her out of her pasture, led her all the way to the arena with only her foal for company, saddled her up and set her to work. Naturally, I expected some form of craziness from this five-year-old OTTB mare whose routine had just been completely ruined.

Magic Lady had had to feel the whip before she realised that she was supposed to move. Upon which she set off quite willingly, with a long, low, forward stride.

She sure looked the part of the thoroughbred. Poised on long, elegant legs as slender as shadows, seeming almost too graceful and fragile to hold her up, she has a chest like a barrel, a chiselled head and an enormous, lively eye. But it was for none of these things that I picked her out for my first broodmare. It was her temperament that hooked me right from day one, a quietness that I've never seen before in a young horse off the racetrack. And in my first session with her, she completely lived up to my first few impressions of her.

I had been expecting something more along the lines of a certain black thoroughbred mare that had been rather interesting to ride; the Mutterer had been holding her down with all his might while she threw an unexpected tantrum with me hanging on for dear life in the saddle. This quiet mare was being more of a gentle native pony than an OTTB.

We did run into one small problem, though, that problem taking the form of Magic Lady's filly foal. Foals are dreadful when it comes to lunging and this one kept running into the lunging line, crashing into her mom or taking off randomly and distracting the mare. The Mutterer said, "It'll be so much easier if you just ride," and instantly regretted it when Magic Lady tried to charge off when I put my foot in the stirrup. He had even less desire to repeat the black-mare-fiasco than I did; Magic Lady was promptly immobilised by the Mutterer's death grip on her bridle while I got on. But it was as we both hoped/suspected: like most of our South African racehorses, she had never had to stand still while mounted, since jockeys here are just legged up on the go; there was no malice in her. Once I was on, she just chewed her bit and waited for me to tell her what to do next.

And so the session continued in plain sailing. I got walk and trot, figures of eight, whoa and go all on only the lightest contact with the bit. She did like to throw her nose up and to the right, which seems to be a fairly typical OTTB thing, but nothing dramatic. She didn't even pull on me. No issues. Thoroughbred mare straight off the track that hadn't seen so much as a bridle for the past two years and she was as quiet as a sheep. She had one minor spook - as in, she half-passed a few steps, hesitated and carried on with her life.

I know that she and I will still be having a few fights in the next few months while I get her ready for her evaluation for the SA Warmblood studbook, but so far, my second thoroughbred is as much against the OTTB stereotype as my first one matches it. If she passes this temperament on to all of her offspring, I shall be a happy breeder.

Have you ever known an OTTB that was quiet from the start? Do you think the quietness has to do with the long lay-off period she had, during which she lived in a completely natural herd environment and even had a foal or two?