Preparing Young Horses for Race Training

Young racehorses have a tough job. They are still immature and growing when first started under saddle and entering training, with their owners and trainers trying to get them into peak fitness and racing ability for their first races at an early age. They must develop strength and fitness rapidly, without being pushed so fast that they suffer injuries or damage to young bones and joints.

“It really pays to start building that fitness even before they are broke to saddle and have to carry a rider,” says Bill Casner, a longtime horseman in Flower Mound, Texas. He has owned and trained racehorses for many years and was co-owner of WinStar Farms in Kentucky for a long time. Today, he continues to raise and train a few racehorses on his ranch in Texas.

“In preparation for a sale or for training our own race prospects, we generally start getting them in shape several months ahead,” he says. “We start swimming our yearlings in April, and swim them for about four or five months before the sale. I gradually adapt them to swimming. I don’t throw too much at them in the beginning because they are not fit, and they are still growing.

“I swim them first in a chute pool, and also have a bigger swimming island in one of my lakes,” he continues. “I start these youngsters in the chute pool because they don’t have to swim very far. I want it to be a positive experience for them, and we do it incrementally, gradually working them into it. It’s small baby steps in the beginning,”

These yearlings have to learn to walk down a ramp and walk through water. “I have a small chute and that’s the first step; we just walk them through that mini-chute, down a ramp, and up a ramp,” he says. “It has sides on it and we generally use an older horse to walk in front of them. The experienced horse is a good role model; they have to learn to walk down and then up an unfamiliar surface, and they catch onto it pretty quickly.

“Then we start filling that chute with water,” he explains. “We put a couple inches of water in it the first time, and that’s a whole new deal. They stick their nose down and smell it and splash it with their foot and realize it’s not scary and they walk through it. Then we gradually fill it up a bit more on subsequent lessons until it’s up to their knees when they walk through it. Most of the time we are leading them through, but when they get to where they are comfortable with it, we’ll put two ropes on them (one on each side) and walk them through it with a handler on each side (outside the chute).

“As soon as they are comfortable with that, we use the big chute. It’s about 100 feet long, with ramps. They only have to swim about eight or 10 strokes. Then we gradually build them up by going back and forth until they are going through it a dozen times at a session. They start learning how to swim and begin to get fit before we ever take them to the swimming island in the lake.

“That’s when we start building them up with multiple rounds,” says Casner. “They go in a chute with an island that they swim around. The first time, we only have them swim around it one time and come out. This last spring, the first time we took them to the big lake, they all walked right in and all swam perfectly and were not stressed. They were ready for it.”

Some years back, he read Temple Grandin’s book Animals in Translation. “It turned on a lot of lights for me,” he says. In that book, Grandin explained how her autism and “thinking in pictures” allows her to focus on visual details more intensely, which enables her to “take in the world as animals do.” She points out many of the little details that most people tend to ignore that may be scary to animals.

“It changed my horsemanship. When a horse, especially a young horse, is scared, it may freak out and go right into self-preservation mode (fight or flight),” he explains. “You’ve got to figure out what the issue is and see if you can alleviate what’s upsetting the horse. I’ve been swimming horses since 1975 and have never stopped learning ways to do it better. Now we have it down to a method that is very non-stressful. These young horses are never scared, their heart rates never go up, and they are okay with it.”

Swimming is a wonderful tool for sales prep or race training because it enables you to start building their athleticism at an early age – strengthening their muscles and respiratory system without the damaging concussion on young feet and legs that would occur when galloping. “Swimming is also is full-body exercise and really builds the topline on these young horses,” he says. “This type of exercise probably helps stimulate their growth. Studies have shown that exercise is one of the things that stimulates growth because you get more secretion of growth hormone and all the other endocrine hormones when you start giving them high-level exercise.

“We do this for a couple reasons. One, it’s a great sales prep tool, and secondly and even more importantly, it prepares these youngsters for the breaking process. It really strengthens them, especially their topline. Many young horses, when you start breaking them, are not very strong. You are usually putting 150 to 160 pounds on them, that’s a lot to ask of an 18-month-old horse. They are still developing. A big, strong stud colt may be able to handle it, but most long-yearlings are better off if you prepare them more gradually.

“We humans wouldn’t go to the gym for the first time and do an intense workout with heavy weights,” he says. “We’d be body-sore and possibly injure ourselves. It’s better to work into this kind of program gradually. I like to prepare young horses for the breaking process, working them in the round pen and going on from there. If the sale is in September, we’ll start working them in the round pen in July. We start slowly and incrementally. We’ll also drive them in these initial training stages.

“Whether I sell them or keep them, they are fit,” he explains. “If I keep them, we’ve gotten a jump on the whole program and have given them a much better opportunity to be a racehorse and get to the races early – which is so important. You want to get them to the races in August or September of their two-year-old year. In order to do that, they have to be able to go through training without all of the detrimental things that so often happen to young horses when you start breaking them.” 

Many young horses develop shin problems. “I start putting all our babies on the vibration plate in February when they are short yearlings,” says Casner. “They will have eight months of that before they are broke or before they go through the sale. This creates a horse that is better prepared for the breaking process, has a better opportunity to stay sound through the training, and has a better chance of getting to the races as an early two year old in August, September or October. This is so important if you hope to have a good racehorse.

“Justify (Win-Star’s 3 year old that won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes to become a Triple Crown winner in 2018) is one of only a few Derby winners (and the first for about 30 years) that never ran as a two year old. Most racehorses really need that early competition – a few races under their belt – to be ready for the spring races their three-year-old year. You want to give them the opportunity to be the best they can be.

“I always sell my good horses; you have to sell your good ones if you are going to stay in the business. When I sell a young horse, the buyer can purchase that horse with confidence, and know that the horse has gone through a process of fitness conditioning and is ready to be broke, with a greater opportunity to stay sound and get to the races early.”

Fitness conditioning won’t show up in the veterinary exams for the sales and pre-purchase exams, but these youngsters will be sound. Casner’s yearlings are out at pasture most of the time, but he brings them in for a while during the day. “We start leaving them in the barn during the day in June and just turn them out at night because of the heat and the sun. We don’t want their hair to bleach.” They get plenty of turnout from 6 p.m. until 8 a.m., and lots of time to self-exercise.

These yearlings are never in stalls all the time. “They need to be able to move around and have plenty of exercise,” says Casner. “You have to put all the pieces together and try to maximize their opportunity to become athletes. It’s like kids who start playing soccer when they are four years old; they may do other sports as they get older, but if they start the physical adaptation process when they are young, they will be stronger and more athletic when they are older.

“Mother Nature will only adapt to the stresses that are presented, aiming for efficiency – not doing any more than is needed in terms of building muscles, bone or cardiovascular function. If you stress those systems at an early age, the body has a much greater opportunity to adapt and maintain those adaptations. Kids who are athletes when they are young and build cardio capacity, maintain that capacity. The heart is one of the few muscles that will maintain fitness throughout your life. If you develop it when you are young and take time off for 10 years and then go back into training, the heart will come back very quickly to the previous level,” he explains.

“It is important to start exercise at an early age (whether humans or horses) when the body is more receptive to adaptation. Most people with large numbers of horses don’t have fitness programs for their yearlings, however, because of the economics. I have about 12 to 15 horses I prep every year, so it’s a smaller population and we can devote more time to each of them. As an industry, most racehorse people don’t start as early as we do; they start prepping yearlings in July by putting them on free walkers. Some people used to treadmill a lot of these yearlings, but that’s not done as much anymore.

“Some people start working them in round pens or do 30 to 40 days of swimming because that’s become more popular. Some yearlings are sent to a place like KESMARC (Kentucky Equine Sports Medicine And Rehabilitation Center) at Versailles, Kentucky. The owner, Kirsten Johnson, is probably one of the most progressive people in every aspect of rehabilitation and sales preparation. She is always on the cutting edge of new technology, and has the best vets coming to her barn. She does a lot of work with show horses, sport horses and racehorses, and has a well-rounded experience doing this.”  

Conformation

“Literally from the time they are born, you start evaluating the young horse’s conformation,” Casner says. “If you think he’s going to toe in, you generally put screws in the ankles, and you need to do that during the first 90 to 100 days when the bones are growing the fastest, for the most effective correction. There is nothing that will ‘kill’ a sale prospect quicker than being toed-in.

“Well Armed was a horse that was good-legged as a foal and then, as he grew older, his chest got wide and he became a toe-in horse. But he’s an exception – in how well he ran and stayed sound. Most toe-in horses are hard to keep sound on dirt tracks because of the slide factor. There is more stress when they torque that foot/leg as they hit the ground and slide.” That little bit of extra twist on a foot that isn’t straight is hard on the joints.

Many people do some corrections on foals at a young age. “Those screws to help the legs straighten really help a horse. There was a lot of controversy when people started doing this, but they make a big difference. Every moving part is affected by and subject to the laws of physics. If you can put that foot in a better position when it slides forward, without twisting, there is a better chance to keep that horse sound – without more stress on one side than the other,” he says.

Conformation of the young horse is hugely important for the sales and for racing. “It’s crucial to do some corrections within the first 90 days of life to help some of these foals grow up straighter,” he says. “Careful trimming can help a lot of them. I trim all of my horses every two weeks. I pick these babies up in Kentucky right after they’ve been weaned, and they’ve had a bit of work on their feet already, but every two weeks I am looking at those feet, watching those foals walk up and down and back and forth.”

Generally, the most common correction is pushing the feet out by lowering the inside of the foot a bit more than the outside – to try to make sure the foot doesn’t toe in. It’s natural for foals to toe out a little because as they grow up, the foot straightens as the chest widens. “We watch that very carefully, and occasionally there will be one that toes out too much and you have to lower the outside of the foot. It takes constant monitoring and management to allow these foals to grow up with the best conformation they can have. It takes a high level of continual management,” he says.

Lots Of Handling

“The good thing about it is that every time you do something with these babies, they are learning – whether they’re standing patiently while they are getting trimmed, or you are leading them here or there. It’s good for their minds and they learn to trust, and accept our leadership,” Casner says.

Babies that are just kicked out in the pasture with their mothers and never handled, or with a group of other yearlings, don’t get enough early education and have to come up from behind when they are started in training. Then it takes more effort to get them to where you want them to be. “A lot of ranch horses have minimal handling; they might get saddled a few times as a two year old and then they get turned out again and brought back later for training.” They miss out on a lot of groundwork and are never quite as easy to handle on the ground.

“Those horses are happiest when a rider is on their back; that’s the main way they’ve been handled and that’s where their comfort level is. Often those horses are not at ease with people on foot and are really wary and ‘watchy.’ They haven’t been handled much from the ground, so when they are in a pen and people come around, they are nervous and suspicious. Once you get hold of them and put a saddle on them and get on, they are good because all the training time has been spent on their back.” They might not be as safe to handle on the ground, however.

“When you start trimming those inexperienced horses or working on their feet, you have to be careful; a lot of horses on those big breeding farms and ranches are not very good about picking their feet up. When you start doing this when they are small, however, they become very much at ease with it, and it’s safer for the horse and the human. I can’t remember any of my guys getting kicked. They know how to move around a horse and position themselves, but the horses are used to it. This is the way you want it, because otherwise those babies can kick you so quick and hard; they are lightning fast! You don’t want that to happen. If it does, it’s generally because of negligence in handling, or someone moves up to them too fast and scares them.”