Yield To Horses

Great reminder to OTTB owners

There’s a stage with OTTBs that almost nobody talks about.
The in-between...Not the track anymore, and not settled into their new life yet either.

We are excited and want to know the "plan" and the answers.

“What supplements should I add?”
“What training program should I start?”
“How fast can we get going?”

I beg you...Please don't rush this stage, this is where trust is built.
Where curiosity matters more than control and where observation matters more than assumptions. Keep it simple in the first days, weeks, and months.

The horses who transition the best are often the ones given space to decompress, express themselves, and slowly show us who they are underneath survival mode.

Sometimes the most important work isn’t training at all. It’s learning how to listen in the middle of the unknown.

Michelle Scarzone - a great reminder!

There’s a phase in OTTBs that most people miss. It’s not the arrival. It’s not the “problem phase.” It’s the in-between.
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Where they are quiet, but not settled, compliant, but not confident, present, but not expressive.
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This is where they’re deciding, “Is this a place where I can be myself?”
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How we handle this phase determines everything that comes next.
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If you push too soon, you build tension. Misread the quiet, you miss the signs.
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If you give them space to process? That’s where curiosity starts to come back.
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This phase is foundational, as uneventful as it might be.
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Have you noticed this stage in your own horses?

Need to know…

Letting a horse have a voice doesn’t make them unsafe. But ignoring it sure does.
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This is what I hear, “If I let them express themselves, won’t that create problems?”
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Um, no, here's what I have witnessed over the years.
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Horses that are never allowed to say “no” don’t become safer, they become quieter until they aren't, until they can't hold it in any longer. Then you see an explosion, they are maxed out, they can't hold it in any longer.
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Expression doesn’t create chaos, it gives you information!
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It tells you:
→ where they’re unsure
→ where they’re holding tension
→ where they don’t understand
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Give them a chance to be heard, let them express themselves, and watch the trust build.
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A horse that can communicate is a horse you can work with.
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Have you ever had a horse change once they started expressing themselves more?

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CkXvamWYF/?mibextid=wwXIfr

The quietest horse in the barn…is rarely the one I trust at first. Especially with OTTBs coming straight off the track.
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They stand still. They don’t react. They do everything “right.”
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And everyone breathes a sigh of relief.
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Sometimes that horse isn’t relaxed. They’re… absent.
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Still processing. Still holding. Still figuring out if they’re allowed to have a response.
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No curiosity. No expression. No opinion.
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And then one day…they start to come back online.
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That’s when people say: “He changed.”
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But he didn’t. He just STARTED SHOWING UP!
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That phase deserves more attention than it gets.

❓Have you ever seen this shift happen❓

A friend experienced an incident while crossing Dynamite. A truck blasted its horn while vehicles were stopped to allow horses to cross. Would a 15-second delay have a substantial impact on your commute? Opinions please

During a recent session with a newly off-track Thoroughbred, I got a few licks and chews near the end.

They were subtle, far apart, and yet he was still not fully relaxed.

But they still mattered. For some horses, especially in the early days, the goal isn’t a dramatic release.

The goal is to be aware of this: “I’m not sure yet… but I’m noticing.”

Sometimes the first sign of progress is not softness, it’s just the beginning of awareness.

And that is worth paying attention to.