10%

NEW STRIDE:

Providing a Life for Former Racehorses

By Taylor Lima

November 10^th, 2014

The sport of horse racing is a historic institution in Canada, dating back to the late 1700s when the wife of a Lieutenant-Governor informally inaugurated horse racing at “The Bend,” a small strip of land connecting Toronto Island to the mainland. Today, though, many animal rights activists detest the sport, calling it cruel and likening it to animal abuse. Protestors of horse racing often argue that after the races are over and a horse is no longer making money, it is tossed away like trash.

The members of New Stride Thoroughbred Adoption Society, an organization based in British Columbia, want to change that. New Stride was founded in 2002 at Hastings Racecourse in Vancouver by a group of concerned breeders, owners and trainers who wanted to provide ex-race horses with a comfortable retirement. The organization is run largely by volunteers, who retrain the horses to be usable for anything from casual trail riding to serious competitions, and who organizing fundraising events and helping maintain their website. These horses give their all during their racing career, so these volunteers strive to give back to them and ensure they live out the rest of their lives happily and healthily.

Bear

New Stride Program Coordinator Carmen Kramer with Bear, a six-year-old Thoroughbred. This was Bear’s first training session with Kramer since he came to New Stride. Every horse New Stride takes in, goes through an evaluation process to figure out what kind of training they’ve had and what kind of training they’ll need going forward, before they are placed up for adoption on the organization’s website.

Christy

Christy, a seven-year-old Thoroughbred, has been with New Stride for about two years now and is still looking for her forever home. This is an unusually long time for a horse to go without adoption, but Christy came to New Stride with a couple of injuries that needed time to heal before she could be adopted out. It is fairly common for former racehorses to have injuries due to the strain they undergo while racing.

Volunteer Tammy Kraft does some ground work with Christy. “Ground work is basically any kind of work you do with a horse without getting on them,” explained Kramer. “It’s very important with any horse, but with racehorses it’s even more important because they’re so used to being handled prior to a race or to training, so they tend to be pretty excitable. We do tons of groundwork with these guys so they learn to be calm while being handled.”

Working these ex-racehorses under saddle, meaning to ride them, is equally as important as groundwork. For example, a racecourse is always designed for the horses to run in a counter-clockwise direction. This means that the horses are usually not used to going right, or in a clockwise direction. Former racehorses usually need a bit of work getting used to stretching their heads down while being ridden, as well. When horses run, they hold their heads up high and stick their noses out into the air. However, this is impractical anywhere but the racetrack. Below, Kraft works on asking Christy to be calm and lower her head while being ridden.

Button Label

Story Told With

Start publishing stories like this