S2 E4: Meet Go Green: Niamh's OTTB Hopeful for the 2025 Retired Racehorse Makeover

S2 E4: Meet Go Green: Niamh's OTTB Hopeful for the 2025 Retired Racehorse Makeover
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Hi everyone. And welcome back to OTTB on tap. I'm Niamh and I'm Emily. Hey, Niamh, what's on tap today? We've got some super exciting news. If you follow us on social media, you've probably already seen,
but I found an OTTB that I'm hoping to take to the retired Racehorse Project Makeover in 2025. Wow, that's amazing. I know we've been talking off and on about trying to find a horse to buy and do this as a team. But we decided after talking it through that it made more sense for Niamh to take the lead and get a horse on her own.
And I can act in more of a supportive and coaching role. Though I still intend on helping with the actual training, hopefully, if she'll let me. With my full time job and getting my own filly going next year, who will be four years old. So maybe we can take her on some adventures, too. This felt like a really good balance.
Once we made that decision, Niamh wasted no time. She was sending me photos, videos, and pedigrees rapid fire. So before we dive in, we do have some quick updates from our second OTTB on tap evaluates episode. We asked the three owners of the horses that we evaluated off of a photo and a pedigree only.
To weigh in on if we were right or not. And this is what they have to say. Also, I wanted to add that they each submitted some updated photos and videos. So we will be posting those as a follow up in the blog on our website, ottbeyondtap. com. So be sure to check those out as well. All right. So our first horse was looking ready owned by Melissa Libby. So she wrote in and said, I just listened. And how do I describe Louie's personality on and off his back?
Quirky is probably the best way to describe. He's actually very lazy under saddle, but once I get him loosened up, he's much better. He does have a random and very athletic spook that will come out of nowhere sometimes. He is very easy to collect and will lengthen nicely if he is relaxed. He does have very nice form over fences.
I do not really jump much, though. He's actually very spooky about jumps until he gets to sniff and touch them. If I lunge him over a jump first, he's much better under saddle. And I have to say that looking at his pedigree and his confirmation, this all makes a ton of sense. He was the more kind of short coupled, short backed Dark Bay.
He is by more than ready. And I think that tracks the way that horses in his entire pedigree kind of work. Scene, do you agree with that? Yeah, and I think we talked about the fact that maybe he'd be a little bit quirky. Yeah, so agree. She goes on to say that he's been shown 1st level has schooled 2nd level and even some 3rd level dressage.
But he can be difficult at shows because he gets scared. So 1st ride, he's usually more comfortable with the surroundings. If he goes to the same place, he's better. He's not a big fan of change. Also, I thought this was interesting. She said on the ground, he's usually very pleasant, but he has a I can touch you, but you don't touch me attitude.
He definitely needs his person, which thank god He has said I am his person. I've seen him go after people he doesn't like so he sounds like he's definitely got a lot of Opinions, as we like to say, yeah, while you were talking about that, I was just going to look up his racing record for a second.
I wanted to see where he had raced and I was curious to see, he only raced 13 times, but I was curious to see if he had raced all at the same location and he actually didn't. He actually raced Five, six different tracks. So it's interesting that he gets nervous in new locations because I would maybe expect that from a horse that had primarily raced at one track and Niamhr really traveled.
But it sounds like he's been around a little bit, but maybe he's just a bit of an internalizer and needs to find his comfort zone and new surroundings. They are all individuals. So while we can look at what not what is presented to us. It really is up to the actual individual, which is makes it so interesting.
Yeah. And I think also like the person that ends up with that horse and how they manage their care, and it sounds like Melissa's incredibly thoughtful in her approach to him and isn't trying to change him as much as she's trying to adapt to what he likes and enjoys and what it takes to make him feel good.
And I think that's a really good takeaway from this is realizing that, with quirks sometimes come great athleticism and I think it's nice to be able to work around their individual personalities and likes and wants to Figure out what makes them happiest and work best. So yeah, that's a really good point and she wraps it up by saying that He loves all animals gets along with any horse, but he's much happier now that he lives outside 24 7 versus being stalled part of the day and night.
He can also be a bad weaver in his stall. So I thought that might be an interesting thing to talk about in an upcoming episode is different ways of, like you put it, adapting a little bit to the horse rather than forcing them all into the same situation. Because I think there's a lot of OTTBs out there that just really do being outside 24 7.
Yeah, and then another point too is that We recognize the fact that not everybody gets to customize their care for a horse. And you are sometimes limited to, the limits of your barn owner or your farm routine and schedule and that kind of stuff. So if you guys ever have any questions about ways that you can like help adapt a horse that's struggling in a particular environment, we'd love to, Chat with you guys about that, but it is sometimes challenging when you're all of those little things aren't in your control, but there are certainly ways that you can try to help [00:06:00] horses in those environments.
Yes. And also if you found a really good way to adapt like Melissa has. That would be interesting to hear too. Anyway, thank you, Melissa, for letting us talk about and I'm trying to think of the right word here. Dissect. I was trying to not use the word dissect. Oh, yes. You're lovely boy.
And it sounds like you've really done a great job with him. Our second horse is one I think I'm a little bit enamored with. Her name is C2 and the owner, Jamie Daly, wrote in and said, Good job, you were pretty spot on about C2, aka Cece. She is very athletic, forward moving horse, but has a great brain, willingness to work, and a desire to learn.
She has honestly been the easiest restart I've had, and I feel like she would just learn anything you wanted to teach her and try her best to do it well. We've mostly fox hunted her. She's a staff horse that whips in and hunts the hounds, but she's also taken a guest in the field a few times. I've also been training her for eventing and hope to do this, do some local shows in the spring and summer.
She's a very nice jumper with great natural balance and uphill movement. Despite needing more muscle in the hind end, the cherry on top is that she's also very sweet. So she actually sent a few videos of her jumping, I think her first cross country schooling, and then a more recent jumping round, and she only came off the track, I think, okay.
The spring or it's, she's a more recently off the track horse. So be sure to check out those photos and videos too. Yeah. And I think we talked a little bit about how she looked a bit weak over hind end and that her front end might overpower that a little bit. But what is really cool about this horse is you could get the impression.
Between her breeding and her expression and just how she's put together that she was pretty much going to enjoy any job that was thrown at her. And when you look at the photos and videos of her, she just has a great expression of just having a blast. And which I think the two punch really like they're happy doing like what they're doing.
Yeah, I think that's really cool. And to have a horse that can hunt the hounds. And be a guest horse in the field for Fox hunting is pretty incredible. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. And I know she events her other horse because I've been following her on Facebook. So the interesting, the CFCC.
Does some more eventing next year and how she does following stocking girl can dream. Emily very much likes this horse. Okay. And then last up, we heard it back from Amanda chance and Amanda's a friend of mine. With her horse, Ruby blue, who has his own Facebook page on Facebook page. I'm gonna I'm just going to say all the notes that she said, cause she was very thoughtful about her response.
Again, Amanda runs her own pedigree business pedigree analysis business called breed ride events.
And she goes into just all of the nitty gritty about all of the lineage and what all of the Aspects of the family tree are doing. And if you ever want to really do a deep dive, she's got a great resource for that. So I wasn't shocked when she sent us back a very thoughtful feedback. She said, yes, he very much knows that he's special.
He's got the kind of swagger that lets you know, he's a hall of famer. He is an athlete all in caps. If he hadn't been a successful race horse for so long, I think this horse would be running around the upper levels of eventing by now. No joke. Amanda herself competes a modified prelim herself.
And she's has a fantastic warm blood homebred that I think she knows the feel of an upper level horse when she sees it. Like y'all said, he's very well balanced, not just in his confirmation, but also in every gate. He's got a Panther walk, which. Is awesome, which usually means a really good canner.
He knows where his feet are and he's incredibly intelligent, thinking hard about everything. Sometimes his intrusive thoughts give him bad ideas, he did think about it first. Yes, he's a bit long. And again, like you guys pointed out, that's preference. I like a lot of front porch, as Emily called it.
And I personally prefer to ride a horse with a longer back for eventing as opposed to a short one. And yes, that's my preference. Yeah, and yes, I agree that he for sure needs more top line. That's where we're starting as he begins his retraining. His feet are, I'd say are on the smaller side of average and he's a little high, low that, yes, the transition has been difficult, especially through our very wet Florida summer, RIP Puffwall.
His sire, Mesner was a three quarter brother to Malibu moon for whatever that's worth. Mesner. Was also owned by Rube's breeder and previous owner, Donnie Brown who she thanks us for getting a shout out to Niamh's guests that he'd carry himself naturally in a nice frame is spot on. He moves more uphill than he stands and he naturally goes quote on the bit and a lovely outline for dressage.
She gives you a really good feeling under saddle, even though he's only a few rides into his retraining. She said this horse is definitely not a show hunter and I'm fairly certain I might die if I tried to fox on him. He's competitive. He's quick in his brain and on his feet and he's bold. Not a kick ride for sure.
He's sensitive but sensible and wants to be ridden six days a week. That work ethic is legit. Those are good qualities for me, but would not be for everybody. To me, he's very quintessential Bernardini and I'll absolutely be shocked if he can't jump. Amanda goes on to say bonus points for noticing the Hawaii is it was an extra selling point for me.
And she was listening to the episode and she sent me a message on. Facebook. Saying I'm here listening to the episode screaming Malachi. Cause I wanted to get you a thousand [00:12:00] dollars. This horse has been very special to a lot of people. So I hope I can do him justice in his new career. Amanda, we have no doubt that you will do him justice.
You're such a good horsewoman. And we're really excited to see what you do with broobs. Emily, what did you think about that feedback? No, I thought it was really interesting. Really thorough. I really appreciate the time that she took to go through that. Sounds like we had a lot of good points there and maybe some that were slight misses, but I think that's to be expected.
Yeah, and I think that you would find I think the big takeaway with him is that, he held up really well came from really good connections. And I've talked to Amanda about this a little bit privately, but I know that she wants to do. Whatever it takes to make him feel really comfortable in whatever job she decides to do with him going forward because, he owes the world nothing, but he still wants to do everything.
It'll be really neat to see how she goes about that journey with him. And I know she really struggled with him this year with his feet and everything like that. And that can be really hard too. Cause he moved from PA where he lived his whole life and then went to Florida and they had a really wet summer.
That can just be an, again, environment, right? Yeah. I think so many off track thoroughbreds that first year is going to be a struggle with their feet. It's just how it is due to the environmental like you said, major environmental changes. Nutrition changes.
shoeing changes and just different work surfaces and all that stuff. So you are not alone. If you have and you're struggling with their feet, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. We will talk about that more soon. All right. So before we get started for real, let's just do a quick reminder.
Check out our website, www. ottbontap. com. You can sign up for our newsletter to be the first to know about bonus content, upcoming episodes, and more. But also while you're there, you'll find the submission form to send your OTTBs in for evaluation on a future OTTB OnTap Evaluates episode. By yours to the two of us yours trulies.
I don't know. How's that set? How does that work? Plus, don't miss our newly launched merch store where you can grab our world famous I Won't Pass It PPE OTTB Underdog t shirts, hoodies, mugs, and more.
Yes, and we're planning on launching more and more designs and each design will be a limited edition series So get them while you can All right. So Niamh back to your new horse. How did you come across him? And what was your criteria? Him or her. Hold on. We don't know yet. I feel like most of our listeners know at this stage, not very good at keeping secrets by the way.
Okay. Also, this all happened in 36 hours because I had been basically looking for a horse for weeks and trying to really convince Emily to do this with me. And so it wasn't like I hadn't already been looking. And as you guys already know, we are always looking at horses. Emily just had to adult for once.
So I had to be the meanie and be like, no, I can't. I know. And I was like what if I just do it? And then she was all excited. So I'm like, yes, please. And I did. I on social media yesterday, I posted something with all of my open tabs and Safari, and I had 420. Open tabs, which to the shock of many friends on our page I asked how many of them were equibase and it turns out 96 of them were but that doesn't mean that some of the open to other open tabs weren't jog videos and things like that.
So that's where we live and that's just in one. Internet window. So we were always looking anyways. So yeah, since we started the OTTB evaluate series, I've definitely been down a rabbit hole thinking about what I like in breeding and confirmation. I was thinking about the RP and I thought I'd really want a horse that can be competitive in dressage and have the temperament to maybe do a freestyle component.
So that was my focus. I also wanted to, because we've been doing this series, I wanted to really take all of the information that we've been researching and studying and try to put that to an actual horse. Did you have any preferences when it came to height, gender, or color? And was there anything that you were trying to avoid? So I think if we had been doing this together I would have been a little bit more specific about the height because you're quite a bit taller than I am, but since it's just for me, I didn't rule out Really anything.
I really didn't want a big horse again. If I was being particular, I probably didn't want anything over 16 too, because I'm five seven and honestly, I really feel good or I actually feel best on something around 15 to 15, three with a decently sprung rib cage. Obviously all of that can change a little bit, but.
I am not getting any younger and I just like a horse a little closer to the ground these days. And then also in my experience, the bigger horses tend to just be a little bit harder to transition. I just think that, for every Extra inch you have on their bodies. That's just a little bit more to deal with in terms of getting them comfortable and things like that.
So definitely it was looking for something between 15, two and 16, one. But I inquired about mares and geldings pretty evenly, and I don't care about color. I. I don't really want a gray horse, though I think it would be an easy resell. I don't know, that's just not really my thing.
But it's not a deciding factor for me in terms of actual [00:18:00] color, is it not your thing because you don't want to have to clean them all the time? Or you just don't like them? No, I like a gray horse. I think they're attractive and everything like that, but I think there are some health concerns with gray horses that I'd rather avoid.
And yeah, going into winter, I don't really want to be cleaning a gray horse either. I really like grooming and I really like my horses to look like top notch all the time. And so I think it would stress me out, like all the time having to clean them. So what about race history or location? Did that play a factor?
I definitely wanted a horse that had raced. I feel like I have this like idea in my brain of What is like the ultimate amount of races to me? I find it's like at least 15 starts or it's over 50 starts. So I want a horse that has a decent race history. And by that, I just mean if it's raced at one track, I'd like it to have raised it a fair amount of times.
If it's only raced a couple of times, it's nice to see that they've moved around a little bit. Basically what I'm saying is I want a horse that like, understands a job. Yeah, that's not to say an unraced thoroughbred with workouts or extremely lightly raised horse cannot be very well broke.
It really, again, depends on the track and the connections, the trainers, all of those things play in. But if you're just going in blind, I think you can set some, vague parameters to try to work around. And I'd Niamhr turned down a war horse. That's my feeling. So tell us about the new guy.
How did you find him? What stood out to you? So I had been looking pretty actively. I contacted a couple of people at the track. And now that I knew that this was happening, I. Kind of don't really have any impulse control. So my barn manager, June Hillman who is a partner farm for turning for home always has her finger on the pulse of anything that's coming down the pipeline from them.
So she reached out to the director to find out what might be coming through and found a nice gelding and showed me a picture of him and he looked Enormous in the photos. We will post a picture. He looks gigantic and it is hard to tell scale at the track. You Niamhr know how tall the people are that are jogging the horses or holding the horses.
But the person holding the horse also looked tall. So I was like, Ooh, that was looks pretty nice. I liked how he was put together. He was very uphill striking looking. He's got a silverish tail, but he's Bay. And just overall, I liked the look of him, but I was worried he was going to be gigantic.
And so she verified that he was maybe 16 hands. So I said, all right let me sleep on it. And I looked up his breeding, loved his breeding, loved his race record. And woke up the next morning and sent her a message just saying, I can't stop thinking about that horse. I also watched a 10 second jog video in which he's jogging away from the camera, but then they turn him left to go into the barn and he walks and I see like about two seconds of walk and was like, Oh, that horse has got an amazing walk.
So yeah, that was it. Yeah. It was funny. Cause you sent him to me and I was like, I thought we were looking for a horse for you because that's what he looked like he was totally my type. Yeah. And I don't necessarily need a huge horse either. Though I am almost six feet tall. But he just had that look of being a big, solidly built type of horse.
And as we will find out pictures do not always. Tell the full story. So give us a little intro to his pedigree and race record, and then we're going to do a little fun, mini OTTB on tap evaluates of what happened before we saw him. Yeah his pedigree really caught my eye.
He's by Greenpoint Crusader, who I don't know much about. But who is by Bernardini and out of a true out of truly loved by yes, it's true. He ran 19 times with two wins and earned almost 34, 000. His last start was October 30th at parks racing. And like I said, he was retired through turning for home.
And I liked that he had experience on both dirt and turf. And I really liked the fact that he had traveled quite a bit.
It traveled quite a bit up and down the East coast for whatever that's worth. Gotcha. All right. So let's start with a little bit more. Do you have any more like in depth pedigree impressions that you wanted to talk through about what stood out to you? Let me see in my other notes. Oh yeah. So I really love seeing Bernardini close and the breeding it was funny.
I was actually talking to Amanda chance when I was. Inquiring about this guy. And I sent her a little bit of info on him and she was like the Bernardini sure can't hide, can it? And I just feel like Bernardini tends to throw these really nice athletic types. They're highly sought after in sport horse careers.
His dam is by, yes, it's true. Another. Highly sought after sire that you don't see as often. And I said, I would expect this horse to be a nice type with athletic potential. Yeah, I think I had similar thoughts again. I'd Niamhr heard of green point crusader, but obviously the Bernardini always stands out to me he's by AP Indy, which is just such a nice line and it's combined with quiet American.
Who I also just get a really good feeling from. He's also inbred slightly to Fapiano. So I would expect that to have some good movement. So we've got good brain, good movement, athleticism. He's out of truly [00:24:00] loved by Yes It's True. And from what I know and have seen of the Yes It's Trues , they tend to be really athletic, smart, good brains, and just have a really good reputation.
And I have one little funny note and I actually should look this up, but way back on the damn side, I see tsunami slew. And I really wonder if that is any relation to the Sally cousins, Mara tsunami who, ran around. Oh yeah. I meant to look that up like a million times. Yeah. I'm just curious. Cause I know that mirror was incredible.
I'm just like a cross country machine. So overall, I think that he's got some really good performance, blood little inbreeding and should have a good. Yeah. And, but getting back to his race record I said he had raced at a lot of different tracks. He had raced on dirt and the turf long races.
He had a couple of question marks on his record, including two races with basically, no speed figure, the comments and the charts were pretty reasonable, but I'd love to know a little bit more. I did speak with his former owner, his most recent owner about a couple of things that I saw and , nothing was alarming, but he was described to me as a big sound turf horse.
And my comment just said, say less. Yeah, I also noticed he had a pretty decent gap in his record. And I thought it was a little concerning that the comment from his last race before that gap was a chase the early pace On the inside and stopped. But he did come back to run five times after that this past fall Though he didn't do that great.
So it seems like it was just time for him to retire. So I know you followed up with that with the past trainer and owner. So I think it's important to find and, to, recognize these gaps in their record, but usually there's some sort of reason for it. It doesn't always mean that there was a catastrophic injury or whatever.
But it's just a clue to give you a little bit to go on in terms of put in your little investigator hat, ask the right questions, make sure that you're comfortable with the answers that you get, and it can also point you in a direction if you are doing a pre purchase on the horse which we would always recommend to just check out certain things if it seems like there's an area that, that may have been impacted from that.
So that's my two. Yeah. And we were getting back to reading the charts and things like that. Understanding the language and the nuance and the language that they use in the charts is really helpful because some of the terminology that they use can be quite scary. Things like, the horse was banned off or just other things like that, that, maybe don't make too much sense.
Equibase actually has, and we'll put a link in the notes or on the website a really good. Dictionary of track use terms on charts that will help guide you a little bit and also some of the words actually a lot of the words are synonymous with one another and so it's good to know which words just mean the same thing and different tracks are going to use different terminology but definitely a handy little thing to have yeah track terminology is definitely Kind of its own language.
So when you found that link, it is definitely something that would be good to include there. All right. So you did talk a little bit about his confirmation. I felt like I really liked his overall uphill balance. He's got a great balance and this is just from the, the photos that I got. Yeah. He seemed like he had a really good balance between his different body parts.
He's got a lovely expression. He's, his ears are up, he's got a good look in his eye. I would say it's hard to tell really how long his neck is or where it ties into his wither, but his head is straight up like a periscope in these photos. And it looks like it's quite I would say like a U neck.
Yeah. We know going in that there may be some work to do with his top line there. But, I personally would prefer a horse whose head is too high than too low. How it's put on their body. Yes. I just made a note to check and see where his neck ties into his wither. And his chest when we see him in person.
Love his shoulder. Love his hindquarter. He should really be able to move and jump. From his jog video I felt like I could tell he was sound. I don't put a lot of stock into being able to tell how a horse will trot from their jog video unless it's exceptional. So I listened to see if they are sound and if they are moving evenly.
And he did. Like you mentioned, I thought you did a great walk in the video. So I hope we can post that in on our website so people can see what basically what you bought this horse off of. Yeah, exactly. 10 second jog video and two photos side unseen. Get him on a truck.
He looks athletic. He's got great breeding, he's very well put together. Other than some question marks about how his neck is attached. Yeah. And I also liked that. I could tell in the photo that he looked to have a very good foot and going into the RRP and taking all the notes from the.
trainers that we collaborated with last year. I really took a lot of a lot of lessons that they've learned to heart. But I think that one of the things is when you're transitioning or you're dealing with like metabolic issues or feet issues, those can really derail your timeline. And I was hoping I could start with something that, especially going into winter, that I was already on the right foot, pun intended.
I'm going to leave now, leave mic drops. This is what happens when we record in the morning instead of in the evening. I know, right? Chugging coffee. Meanwhile, Niamh has half a coffee and she turns into this bubbly Oh yeah, I'm a monster. I'm like, stop talking. Anyway. Okay. Seemed like he arrived like immediately.[00:30:00]
Yeah. It actually turned out that because our bar manager Always has horses coming in and out of the barn. She has a regular shipper that goes to parks. Like at least once a week and happened to be picking up another horse from us, dropping another horse off.
And so we, I talked about the horse the night before, and then she said, I can get it on the truck tomorrow. And so next thing you know, yeah, horse is coming tomorrow. That was pretty exciting. But then of course, I woke up feeling like Christmas morning, like what, I don't What is this thing going to be like?
It's still in my mind. I thought it was going to get off the trailer being this 17 hand monster. Yeah, we didn't really believe that he was really only 16 hands. I've got to say. Yeah, but again, Worst case scenario was that he arrived and I just thought he wasn't suitable for me. And then he just went right into my barn manager's program and she would, keep him and have him as a resale.
So I was fortunate in the sense that he, I happened to find a horse that came through her partner program. That was a happy accident for sure. But yeah, he arrived the next day who's I went in to see him, was so happy when I realized he was sub 16 hands. And it was just very sweet. We have video of him getting off the trailer and again, our farm is a lot to look at and where he was unloaded, you can literally see over half of Chester County.
But do you want to talk about what you felt Emily, when I first got him off the trailer? First of all, I don't think we've said his name yet. So his racing name, his jockey club name is Go Green. Yes. And I was going to go into his bar name, but you want to know what my first impressions were.
Yeah. My first impressions were this, similar, he walked off the trailer. He was definitely slighter in build than. Yeah. I was expecting, even though he was about the size that we were told he was, which is always nice. He looks very beefy in the photo.
He looks pretty big boned and very sturdy and he's quite got quite a light build. He seems a bit narrow maybe but still love the way he's put together I love the way that he walked up to the round pen And once we let him loosen the round pen He just seemed to have a really good brain like he didn't go tearing away From us or anything like that, it's probably the first time he had real freedom in years.
That was nice to see And he didn't appear that he'd had, gotten any, anything in his system that morning or anything like he was definitely alert, but just taking everything in. So I really appreciated that. Yeah, and he definitely showed off he was wide awake and we, he started trotting around and we were like.
We're like, okay, he'll do. Okay. Just a lot of suspension, a lot of just natural fluidity and his gates. Yeah, we can only really only evaluate that from the walk and the truck. Cause the canner that they do when they first come off the track is. Basically something in between a pogo stick, a bunny and yeah, they're rarely on the same lead in the front and in the back, especially in a small space.
Jessica commented on that where it's really tough to evaluate them the first couple of times that they're moving free. Their hind legs don't separate at all. Yeah. Yeah. Especially the canter and then quite often. The trot is not the trot that you get under saddle, at least not for a very long time.
However, it's really nice to see what's in there when they do that big fancy floaty trot. So we did get some video of that. And we have pictures of him and all that good stuff. And then what did you decide to call him? So we did a little bit of a we were thinking maybe Irish cause of go green and I'm Irish and then it wasn't sticking for me.
So I do love human names for horses. And my boyfriend who is helping me a little bit with this process kept saying Kermit or Oscar, and I just couldn't get. My brain around calling him the horse Kermit though. He, I think it's a cute name. So we decided to call him Oscar. Actually my mom had a beloved little dog named Oscar.
So I feel like it's a legacy name in our family a little bit, but yep. So Oscar suits him quite nice. He has been mostly not a grouch though. I have seen some attitude come out here and there. But yeah he's been really cool to work with so far.
So what is what's next for you and Oscar? I know we've got the RRP You got them a little bit before the deadline or the I don't know if it's the deadline or the start date But December yeah, December 1st is the kind of agreed upon and by the rules start date that the horse Should not have had 15 training rides or like working sessions before that.
Now that we're into December . What are your plans for getting them going? I know that winter also just hit us. We've had Kind of a mild fall, very mild fall, and now it's sub 30 degrees. So how's it going? And where, what are you doing next?
I think, like I said, at the beginning of this episode, one of my big goals with this horse is to try to do a lot of things, based on some of the things I've. Learned from in the past and just really try to set a strong example. It does feel a little bit like a lot of pressure having this podcast and being a voice of, semi education, semi solidarity and.
Wanting to, make sure that I imprint this horse the right way. And that doesn't mean that I won't make mistakes along the way. Cause of course I [00:36:00] will, but I just want to make sure that I. Take my time to. Not skip steps and put a really good foundation on him if I can over the winter and so We'll do a follow up episode about this, but we're actually recording this on December 1st.
So now I've had him for Two weeks I think and we've done a fair bit in two weeks in terms of just getting to know him and things like that but yeah, just start with the basics. Start with learning how to cross tie, learning how to come in from your paddock, learning how to have turnout, have a friend how to be in the barn, our barn, Our property is wild.
And so he actually is turned out in a field that is quite far away from where we do everything with our riding horses. And so that's going to be something he's going to have to get used to, leaving his friends, learning to be with me, and then just doing all the steps from the ground up, grooming, tacking, learning how to lunge, all the basics, learning how to stand on the mounting block.
And so I'm eager to share with you guys all of those milestones and see how things go with them. And I think my first impressions with him are that he's quite sensible. He seems to just stand and look if he's a bit worried about something. He seems intelligent and. I think he's going to be a fun project to work with.
Absolutely. And we'll, it'll be really fun to follow along and see how you develop that neck of his. Oh yeah. Anyway, we are so excited to follow your journey with Oscar. Remember you can join the conversation by signing up for our newsletter at ottbontap. com. And we also have a very active Facebook page, so check us out there.
And Niamh, do you want to tell us about how we will have some upcoming behind the scenes? Content. Yeah. So for those of you that want even more behind the scenes access, our OTTB on tap insiders, private Facebook group offers exclusive content, including confirmation evaluations, training insights, and special video updates.
Following my journey with Oscar, this private group is available only through our squad cast membership tiers, which we will be launching really soon. Awesome. And if you want your horse evaluated for a future episode, don't forget to submit photos and pedigree details through our website. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time on OTTB OnTap.
Oh wait, look what we're supposed to do now. What? Cheers? Together. No. I thought it'd be great if we start the podcast by saying welcome to OTTB OnTap together. What do you think? We're Niamhr going to be able to get that right. Maybe we'd be able to give each other leg ups then.
If you guys want real behind the scenes content, it would be stuff like Emily trying to give me a leg up. If anybody wants to see that in action, let us know. We'll practice with my personal horse because he'll be. Moderately tolerant of it. Anyway, cheers. If you liked what you heard today, please leave us a five star review on Apple podcasts.
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