As dramatic as that title may sound, it is exactly what this is. I have decided to blog & vlog our journey to the retired racehorse project in October. Lucky you.
Let’s start this story off by me letting you know Vero was never supposed to be my RRP horse. 🤷🏻♀️ I had set aside a beautiful, big-boned, great-brained Lion Heart granddaughter to take … but fate inserted herself, and she found a great home with an amazing mom, so here we are 😂
Vero came into our program about six months ago, after being completely starved on the brink of death by his old owners. Turning For Home took action and got him (as well as others) out of harm's way.
Now some of you are going to hate me for saying this, and to that I say, HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE GOD'S FAVORITE AND ALWAYS HAVE NICE HORSES? Because when I tell you, Vero was a complete asshole when he got here. I mean, he was a COMPLETE (line-bred a little too close for comfort) asshole. I will say I do not blame the horse for being an asshole, after what he went through. I would be an asshole too. From war horse on the track, to starved, to nursed back to health - he had lost all of his ground manners and forgot he was supposed to be an A.P. Indy great-grandson ON TOP AND BOTTOM bay gelding; quite frankly, he forgot how to be a broke horse.
If I told you I never thought about finding a nice training home to send him to several times - that would be a lie. Vero really tested me for the first several weeks he was here .. so much that his first ride was done by John because I thought I would kill him if I swung a leg over him. For those of you who know me personally, you know that this is not my full-time job. I work a day job to support my personal horses, and then I take a handful of OTTB from the track to rehab, retrain, re-home to find their next careers - so I honestly thought that Vero's baggage needed much more time and attention than I would be able to give him.
OK, fast forward to today - Feb 19, 2025. I got accepted to compete at the RRP yesterday. Vero now officially has 10 post-track rides on him, not including the one done by John in December 2024. Most of January was spent working on ground manners & lunging with Vero, and reminding him standing tied is what good geldings do.
I really thought we were getting to see eye to eye, so one day I said, "let's do this," and I tacked him up and rode him .. before I could even fully get on, he bolted & bucked me off, right into a pile of his own shit. Amazing start to this journey together, truly. He walked right back over to me after losing his shit and just stared at me. Fine, I took a few deep breaths so I didn't lose MY shit, then slowly walked over to him and got on. Vero could probably sense I was on the brink of a homicide - so he kept his cool the rest of the ride. Good boy, Vero.
The next several weeks went slow. It was rainy, snowy, cold - ya girl doesn't have her own indoor, and my riding ring was frozen like a rock, OKAY? You know the saying "make lemonade out of lemons"? Well, we made a LOT of lemonade.. the bad weather was a great opportunity for us to work on the little - but important things. We broke about a dozen cross ties, but learned to stand - we of course learned to stand tied to the trailer, as mentioned above, and under saddle - we learned lateral movements, and we even installed reverse on this model. I started hauling Vero ANY and EVERYWHERE with me now that he stood tied, and every time we hauled out, we hauled back home a better horse -- I cannot express this enough .. come closer and listen to me .. I am going to bold this next part to get it through your heads -- if possible, HAUL YOUR HORSES WHENEVER YOU CAN, WHEREVER YOU CAN! Bring them to trail rides outside of your home, bring them to a friend's house, bring them to events - even if they are not competing, just BRING THEM!!! Got it? Great - moving on.
Vero was showing me what a little extra time & effort put into a horse with emotional damage could do for them, and we were thriving. Yes - he is still an absolute dick .. but I kind of love him? I'll unpack what that says about me another day.
For now, I leave you with this - the most important thing most days is BUTT IN SADDLE TIME. Whether that is 20 minutes just hacking out, or an hour working on something more specific. The small rides mean just as much as the big ones - so get your asses on your horse and stop beating around the bush - we have less than 8 months to get ourselves presentable to KY .. let's do the damn thing.
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