RETRAINING

RETRAINING RACEHORSES

Jason grew up with his father’s love for the Thoroughbred! A small scale breeding operation led to success on the local ‘Bush’ racecourses around the Riverina area of New South Wales. Jason spent his teenage years breaking these horses in, or retraining them for jobs outside of racing, with great success. Some went on to be excellent polo ponies, showjumpers and polocrosse horses, whilst others made good Pony Club and working horses. Some won major awards, for example, Milk, a failed homebred racehorse, went on to win Champion Horse at the Victorian Polocrosse Championships, and Champion Masters Horse at the 2006 Australian Polocrosse National Championships.

Since coming to the UK, Jason has spent time re-educating racehorses for clients for various jobs, as well as starting a number of Thoroughbreds for polo, eventing and racing.

Christie Skippen, our assistant trainer, has extensive experience with racehorses and also enjoys retraining them for other disciplines.

Albert, owned by Zara hunt
“I bought an ex racehorse from Newmarket who I wanted to play polocrosse on, but he had a bad habit of rearing when he gets excited (and not silly little rears either!). After sending him to you, Albert is doing really well, I can't believe he is the same horse! He is responding well to my commands, spinning and stopping, and i can wind him up and do 5 minutes of hard work and then stand him still and relax, without any rearing! Thank you very much for all your time and effort you put in to him while he was at your yard, it was definitely worth the long journey!”

Bryony Dickens
I had a horse straight out of racing & he’d never been taught any manners. I’d bought him to compete in Endurance riding, but he was very naughty about having his hind feet picked up & would instantly pull-back if he was tied up, meaning elimination at Vet Checks. Needless to say, after Jason had done his magic we never had any further trouble with this horse, who went on to compete successfully.”

‘PROBLEM’ HORSES

Jason has had success with just about all behavioural problems and has turned around 'dangerous' horses that have been recommended by vets to be put down. We are regularly referred to by farriers, vets and other equine practitioners.

The most common problems that he comes across are loading and shoeing, and rearing, napping and bolting when being ridden. However, Jason firmly believes that re-education does not stop with the horse, but is equally important for the rider!

Some horses stay for a week’s ‘fine tuning’, whilst others have been put through a prolonged retraining programme. However, we believe in ‘honesty is the best policy’ and if we don’t feel that horse and rider are suited, or if the horse is going to be too dangerous, we will advise accordingly.

Please see our testimonials from happy clients with ‘new’ horses!