Cover image supplied
TTR’s problems-and-solutions series has so far heard from a trainer, breeder, punter, race club board member and welfare advocate. The next response comes from Jo McKinnon, champion equestrian rider, award-winning journalist, TV and radio presenter, PR and marketing expert.
What do you think is racing’s biggest problem?
I am the greatest fan of Thoroughbreds. I've been handling, training and competing them since I was 12 years old. I’ve worked with other breeds, Quarter Horses and Stock Horses, but I always come back to the Thoroughbred as my preferred horse.
By the time someone like me gets a Thoroughbred, they are generally very well set up. They usually float superbly, they're well handled, they've had a lot of exposure through their racing journey, and that experience is gold. If they're well-bred and well raised, they’ve had an A-plus upbringing with the best education, feeding and veterinary care, so you’re already a long way in front.
They’re the most beautiful horse to look at, and they’re suited to a myriad of purposes: the show ring, dressage, showjumping, eventing, working equitation, barrel racing, station horses, ranch riding horses, pleasure horses or just lovely companions. They tick a lot of boxes.
I’m the biggest advocate of Thoroughbreds and always will be. But I’ve had a lifetime working with them, so I understand the pitfalls and the challenges.
Jo McKinnon / Image supplied
Increasingly, there’s a stigma against them in some equestrian circles, and that’s my concern. I am seeing firsthand that the perception of Thoroughbreds is diminishing at a rapid rate.
And that is because people that are getting them shouldn’t have them.
They’re cheap to get, often free. Because of that, they’re attracting, with the greatest of respect, the low end of the equestrian market. People are looking for cheap horses because they can’t really afford to have a horse.
In that case, the last horse on the planet they should have is a Thoroughbred.
They eat for Australia. They take a lot of management, handling and horsemanship skills. The sheer size of them is not suitable for people that have only a basic competence. People don’t understand the mechanics or the mentality of a Thoroughbred, and I’m not being rude, but they’re not particularly good riders.
These people fly into the off-the-track market, get their cheap horse, have a bad experience and fly out of it as quickly as they flew in. Then they get around their pony club circles or social media, or wherever else they’re knocking around, and they bag the Thoroughbred.
But it’s not the horse’s fault - they need to look at themselves.
It also creates a real problem for the full time professional equestrians who are working with these horses and trying to on-sell them. People don’t want to pay money for re-trained Thoroughbreds.
Why buy a horse that someone has put a year or 18 months of effort into, creating a good, safe horse, when you can get one off the track for free?
That’s all well and good, but do you have the capability to transition that horse in the best way possible straight off the track?
It takes an enormous amount of knowledge and skill. You can’t get the horse home, throw an English saddle on it and trot it around the arena on the bit and expect everything to be hunky-dory. These horses often need three to six months in the paddock to let down before you start. There’s a whole process involved.
They arrive full of grain, racing fit, and if you put them in a 10-metre yard with no feed, it’s a recipe for disaster. People don’t know how to feed them. They just think, ‘I’ve got this horse, it’s going to be my pony club mount next week.’
Some horses are real naturals and really easy, but more often than not, it takes time. You are building on the training that is already instilled in that horse. If you don’t understand that background, you can’t work with it.
There are young girls that love collecting horses. They grab all these lovely horses off the track and keep them in their little paddock, then realise they can’t handle them, can’t ride them, don’t know where to start with their training and can’t afford to feed or shoe them. So they get rid of them again, and it’s always the horse’s fault.
Now the horse has a half-baked bad reputation because someone didn’t have the skills to cope with it.
Never does the person admit, ‘Oh, I'm not capable.’ No, all this rubbish gets spoken about the horse, and this creates a spiral where the horse starts passing through more and more hands because alarm bells are ringing.
They’ve grabbed a free horse only to find they have bitten off more than they can chew, and now they want to get rid of the horse. So it gets passed on for free again.
Then there are the unscrupulous traders who get free horses and sell them to the knackers for $500. Do that a few times a week and it’s a decent income. Free To Good Home - FTGH - you see it all the time on Facebook and there are no controls around it. It used to be problematic horses only, a windsucker or one with an injury that needs time and rehab, but more and more it’s good basic horses with nothing wrong.
When you take a horse direct from a trainer, the principal racing authority contacts you to get details, like your phone number and the address where the horse will live. But beyond that, what happens?
If I sell the horse, there’s no next step. I’ve been contacted by Racing NSW about horses that I had already sold, and I gave them the details of the person that had them next and sent photos. But what next?
What is the solution?
There is not one magic solution. It’s a multifaceted problem and there are a lot of parts to this. Coming up with effective solutions will take collaboration and a proper commitment to the same end goal, which has to be the horse.
And it’s not that things aren’t being done. I had a conversation with Racing NSW this week and learnt there are some great things happening in the horse welfare space. Step one is that we need to hear more about those initiatives.
But anything that simply adds cost is not going to work.
To compete at a certain level, I have to be a member of Equestrian Australia, the Show Horse Council of Australia or the Australian National Saddle Horse Association. Then the horse has to be registered. Collectively, I spend around $1000 a year in membership fees. Often you pay more to register them than to buy them.
Then there’s the upkeep. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a Thoroughbred or a mule, animals cost money and they are a responsibility.
A national register of all horses, not just Thoroughbreds, would help. We need to track them better and know how many are out there and where they are.
The industry can also do more with the racing stables that are moving horses directly into the off-the-track market.
Trainers know these horses better than anyone. Their input is crucial when it comes to soundness, temperament and suitability. But trainers are busy training racehorses. They are not equestrian retrainers, and they shouldn’t be expected to manage the whole rehoming process on their own. The industry needs to build support around them so horses are placed properly, rather than left to whoever is easiest to give them to.
Owners need help too. They do want to do the right thing. I don’t know many owners who don’t. It’s more that they don’t always know what to do.
There needs to be a number people can call. I’ve had people contact me through my own website saying, ‘Oh my god, I’ve got a paddock full of horses. I don’t know what to do with them. Can you help me?’
Start with a website that says, here are your options, here are the steps, and here is who can help. The industry probably needs brokers or liaison people to help manage that transition from racing into the next phase.
Soundness is another issue. We need detailed reports attached to each horse that is moved into equestrian pursuits.
I have an ex-Hong Kong horse and I had access to his vet reports, which gave me guidance on his management moving forward. Why can’t we take a leaf out of the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s book with this? Look at what works globally and cherry pick the parts that would work here.
There also needs to be a determination on suitability when a horse retires from the racetrack.
Start with the trainer, because they know the horse. Does it have the soundness? Does it have the temperament? Is it suitable for a life beyond racing, and if so, what kind of life?
When I get a horse, I’ll often ring the trainer and ask those questions, but I’m different to the normal person because I’m lucky enough to have a network of contacts.
For most riders, it’s hard. They don’t know how to get hold of certain trainers and they don’t know what questions to ask. They don’t know what to look for to figure out whether that horse is going to be suitable for them.
That’s where a proper liaison person could make a huge difference. You need someone who understands the breed, understands racing and also understands horsemanship and riding. You’ve got to be able to talk to everyone from a steward to a trainer, a trackwork rider, an equestrian and a pony club kid.
And you’ve got to talk the language.
On the equestrian side, we need more education. There are expert horsemanship skills required for retraining, and there is huge potential to do more at a grassroots level to teach people how to manage Thoroughbreds.
The sheer size of Australia makes that challenging, but state by state, there is nothing to say there couldn’t be training hubs. It can also be done online. Come up with a set of modules people can access freely.
That would be particularly useful for people in remote areas who don’t have access to instructors or training bases. I live in the bush and I’ve often had to learn things by going online. An information hub with a step-by-step guide on how to transition a horse from one environment into another would be absolutely brilliant.
Every wrong horse that hits the market, or every horse that ends up in an unsuitable home, does diabolical damage to the perception of the Thoroughbred.
There are so many knowledgeable people out there with so much to offer in this space, but there is no system to pull everyone and their experience together.
Australian National Saddle Horse Association competitors | Image courtesy of Australian National Saddle Horse Association
The current systems and processes around rehoming are not effectively working, because if they were, why is the problem getting worse?
Let’s face into this and come up with realistic, more effective solutions. The industry has got to open its doors more to the right people who are experts.
Horse skills are not something that can be acquired overnight. It’s a lifetime. We can say, let’s upskill everybody, but people can be quite arrogant about how they rate themselves as horse people. That’s not just a racehorse rehoming issue. That’s human nature.
We shouldn’t let that stop us creating a system that helps the majority. All the industry can do is offer the help and build better systems to support horses and people.
The rest is up to the people.
