Standardbreds-- Off the track, from birth?

[yankee'n'moxie]

Hello everyone!

I want to start a thread about Standardbreds! Any and all types-- Like the subject line says, off from the track, or if you have had the from birth!

I have a Standardbred gelding, Yankee and a Standardbred X Appy mare, Moxie... Yankee came from the track. My friend's family rescued him from the slaughterhouse, and I met him at their place. I fell in love and we bought him! My very first horse! And Moxie, we adopted from a rescue nearby. Yankee needed a companion and we decided that instead of buying an expensive horse that already had a good home, to adopt from a rescue. Those horses need so much love and rehabilitation! She has come along nicely and is now ride-able-- and with my little brother bareback no less!

Anyways, enough about me! I would love to hear about your Standardbreds!

Oh, I will upload a pic another day when I can get on the other computer, where all of my pics are stored!

Happy Thanksgiving all!

 

[ridinglizzard]

We have two Standardbreds too.

The first one we got was our first horse, Dude. He is off the track, although apparently never did very well because he hates to run! He can pace though, and looks really beautiful when he does trot. He is a big boy (17hh) and friendly as a puppy dog. But he doesn't know very much, or at least pretends he doesn't. He is mainly a pasture pet.

Here is my husband and Dude

Our second standardbred we got when we were looking for a horse for me, but my husband fell in love with him instead. His name is Sunny, and he is a cart horse. Really nice boy.

Here is my husband and Sunny

And Sunny pulling the cart

 

[yankee'n'moxie]

They are beautiful!

My gelding, Yankee wasn't very good on the track either! LOL... He did pace when I got him, but I broke him of it, mostly... Haha, he still doesn't trot, but he loves loping or cantering... I don't use him for anything special, so I let him do whichever when I ask him for anything faster than his walk. I do wish that I could get him to trot, but he just isn't interested... LOL!

Sunny looks like he enjoys his life a lot! I am so glad that there are other Standardbred lovers here!

 

[treeclimber233]

If he is a natural pacer he may never trot. However with proper training he may gait for you. Gaiting is actually a broken pace and if you can find a trainer willing to train him he will be much smoother gaiting than trotting.

 

[onawhimfarm]

Standardbreds are GREAT horses!! I use to race them. I have broke many to ride and they are always so easy to train!! I love their personality and their willingness to please. They are always worth saving!!

 

[horseowner]

I have been around standardbreds all my life in one respect or another. Some I have been around as harness racers from local breeder that live near me. But mostly as buggy horses for the Amish, ect. They always seemed like quite, gentle horses even though to me they were a bit plain looking. I never thought about owning one as i had always thought of them as being good as only buggy horses, but not for riding. Was i wrong. I have since learned what wonderful, sweet and versatile horse the standies are. Many are used as Hunter Jumpers. But they have also been used for Mounted Police, eventing, games, western pleasure, trail riding and some make very good speed racking horses.

I ran across one that was going to be sent to slaughter, he actually was suppose to have shipped to slaughter the week before, when the broker handed him over to see if a home could be found, stating that he was just too nice a horse. This is where I found him, on a brokers lot ready to ship to slaughter if no one offered him a home. What many were not aware of regarding this horse is he racked naturally. I noticed this, and thought wonderful! A speed racker in my future. So he arrived at my house on New Years Day.

I was able to find out through his brand that he was bred and sold as a yearling by a famous owner. He sold for 22,000 at his yearling sale. His sire had won over 2 million on the track and became a very famous sire. His dam won over 300,000 on the track and won a very prestigious race for 3 yr olds. My boy came to me as a gelding and he had raced three times as a 3 yr old and won. But his history gets more vague from there. I do know he was kept racing until 2009 and then there is nothing more until he showed up on brokers lot in 2011 a month ago. He may have been used by the Amish until then. There are certain things that hint toward that.

I have only had my boy for about two weeks, but i have fallen in love with him. He is a 15 hand bay gelding. No marking, but is very sweet and laid back. He has been ridden bareback with only a halter and was racking even then.

Once i got him home I lunged him and he did great and did indeed rack on the lungeline. He also trotted as well, even though he was raced as a pacer. So he is multitalented and I know he is going to make a great trail and racking horse. Hope to be able to do some shows with him as well.

I would be happy to post a picture, but not sure how? I tried pasting the code in here, which worked for me on other sites, but this site would not let me. So if someone could tell me how to go about it, i would be glad to do so.

 

[Sheepdog]

My first horse was an expacer standardbred. He got mild ringbone and was retired from racing. He had been broken to saddle and I started riding him when I was nine. When I was eleven years old the owners told me he was going to the "glue factory".... so he was going to be made into dog food because they had no use for him. So I rode my bicycle to every market garden farn in the district until someone would give me a job so I could save this beloved horse that I had grown to love. I had no idea of where I was going to keep him as we lived in town, but the issue was to save him. Some nice people took pity on me and paid me a dollar an hour to pick strawberries on weekends. I saved up and brought the horse, named Little Hondo (after Hondo Grattan a famous Australian Pacer). Adios was my horse's great grand daddy who was from here in the USA. The people who I worked for picking strawberries also happened to have a pasture for me to keep my horse, free of charge. Luckily we lived in Tasmania, in an area where the soil was fertile and rain was plentiful, so Little Hondo was always fat just on good grass.

I ended up making a really good sporting horse out of him, he was a super pole bending horse and we competed in the Australian Pony Club Prince Of Wales mounted games. He could also jump like you wouldn't believe.... unfortunately we would get halfway round the course, come to the double or the triple and he would get all out of sync and start to pace, so then we would get a refusal, often with me jumping the jump, head first and Little Hondo standing at the other side of the jump looking at me.

He was the only standardbred that I ever owned and that was many, many years ago. But we use them a lot in the Quarter Horse industry as recipient mares because of their wonderful calm natures and natural maternal instincts.

Friends of mine had a stud with 300 standardbred broodmares and a number of stallions. When we ultrasound/scanned mares and AI-ed the mares were run up the chute like cattle.... foals drafted off and put in a yard by themselves. This I thought would be just a recipe for disaster... no way we could do that with our QH mares, much less our TBs. They would have gone crazy looking for foals, panic and generally acted up. The standardbreds just took it in their stride, for the most part they were so quiet to do anything with. Of couse you would get one or two that was a bit of a nut case, but generally speaking they were a pleasure to work with. I have AI-ed a lot of QHs which are my preferred breed and have been now for many years, but the standardbreds are just so easy to do anything with. I will continue to use standardbreds if I ever need recipient mares for embryo transfer. They are just the best. They also make good riding school horses due to their quiet dispositions and when non-horsey people want to just have a leisurely ride on a trail, the standardbred offers a nice smooth ride if they are expacers as they usually still have that smooth ambling pacing gait. And the non-horsey people don't get as sore a butt either

 

[yankee'n'moxie]

I love to hear all the wonderful stories about Standardbreds! They truly are a wonderful breed!!

I plan to teach my gelding barrels and maybe poles. We'll see! Since the snow set in here in Maine, I have been doing mostly ground work and lunging with him, and he seems to have gotten the hang of trotting! I hope that he keeps it up when I ride him!

 

[danischi24]

Lovely horses though not a breed I've had anything to do with.