S2 E6: 2024 Wrapped: OTTB Tales from Christmas Past and Present

Transcript: S2 E6: 2024 Wrapped: OTTB Tales from Christmas Past and Present
[00:00:00] So we're starting off with our favorite episode recap, right? I don't know what we're calling this, but we'll figure it out. We can just call it our podcast wrapped or I don't know
you saw they did it for us. We have one for the podcast. Spotify did one for us. Oh, just for the podcast. Oh, okay. Yeah. So we could share some of those graphics. They're pretty cool. That would be cool. All right. Not monitoring our email. I see. Or you would have seen that. I know. I'm sorry.
I'm the worst. Guys, this is going to be my last podcast. Cause I just found out that I'm the worst.
Also, I don't know why recording early in the day is so much harder for me, but cause you're not drunk. That could be, yeah. No . On that note though, we do have an exciting new logo or t-shirt or sticker thing that we're gonna be debuting soon that has to do with horses and beer, so quite excited.
Still working on the tweaks for that one. But yeah, that's gonna be awesome for my OTTB has more hops than yours. I like that. That could be, , like a double entendre. Cause sometimes these horses, especially this time of year, get a little hippity hoppity. Yes, that was the intent hops for beer and hops for coffee.
Okay. Oh boy. This is gonna be a rough one guys Merry Christmas We hope you like this episode which is probably gonna be a little long so if you're listening to this when it airs you've probably Just gotten through your Christmas Day and hopefully you got everything that you wanted Merry Christmas And yeah, and we're making up for lost time since we skipped last week due to health and holiday reasons.
I couldn't talk. It would have been bad. I was just coughing basically for a week. We're back. We're back. All right. On that note. 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 gained a lot of new listeners lately and had incredible feedback from a poll we ran through our page a few weeks ago.
So we sat down to look over our first year of podcasting. It's a little like The Spotify wrapped thing that they do this time of year. I wanted to just give a quick shout out to Nicole makings. One of our newest listeners, she sent us a nice message on Facebook saying she found us as a Spotify suggestion, which is so cool.
And that totally makes our day. We also have gotten a few new reviews both on Facebook and Apple podcasts. And when they pop up believe me when I say it, 100 percent makes not only our day, but like our week, our month, our year to hear from you in this way. Also don't forget to shoot us your address and we will send you OTTB on tap stickers.
For your reviews, that's all. Yeah, we do get super excited, depending on who sees it first, we'll send it to the other one and it's 6:00 AM and we're texting each other screenshots of new reviews. Yeah. We just can't even believe that anybody's here listening to us. And so it's, oh, stop.
That's very cool. I did start compiling the information of the different episodes that we have produced over the past year, which is over 50, which is amazing. And I started compiling them into different categories. And that was really interesting. So we really would like to review some of our themes and series.
We want to help guide new and old listeners in the right direction to find the content that they want the most. And we'll put links to each category in the show notes and on the website's episode page. If you want to dive in or revisit some of your past favorites, that would be great too.
Oh, I just wanted to quickly say here, when you said 50 episodes, it just got me thinking that from the time that we decided we wanted to start a podcast to us, recording our first episode was not a lot of time. And we literally have learned everything as we've been going on the fly. We do all of the research, writing, recording, editing, production.
social media. Everything is done between the two of us and it's a big undertaking. Emily works a regular nine to five job and I have three jobs and it's really rewarding to know that we've just, we have so many listeners out there. Again, going back to the feedback, it's just really cool to hear, what you guys have to say about what the podcast has meant to you
and it just makes all the hard work worth it for us. So I think our transformation has been really cool. We started off so timid and now we actually look forward to recording. Most of the time, just not in the morning. Yeah. However, here we are. So yes, we're going to talk about our 2024 year in review, share some of our favorite moments, but first we want to take a little trip down memory lane from our time buying and selling off track thoroughbreds and just give you guys a little taste of what it was like.
So we've got a bunch of topics. I don't know if needs to look through this yet. I'm just going to throw these at her and see what happens. I did look through them. I'm not really sure what I can contribute, but we'll see. Oh boy. All right. My first topic that I came up with something that made buying retraining, reselling off track thoroughbreds was matching them with the right person.
Sometimes you would have a horse that hung around for what seemed to be no good reason. It was an attractive horse. It was sound. It had [00:06:00] athleticism. It liked to jump. Sometimes it was the quietest to ride. Sometimes it's the not quietest to ride. There's sometimes there's just no rhyme or reason.
And we'd have these really lovely horses in the barn and People come look and they invariably want one. Not always, but sometimes the one that you didn't think that they wanted. Which was always interesting too. But sometimes this magic would happen where that thoroughbred would really just pick their person.
And I was curious, Niamhe, I have a couple I could talk about. I'm curious if you have any that you would like to start with. I'm gonna have to think about it. Why don't you tell one of your stories and I'm gonna think about it. One of my stories actually has to do with you. And I think we did talk about this a bit in our episode.
About scouting the way. Oh, yeah. But we had he's definitely one that I could talk about for sure. We had Niamhe's house, who were scouting the barn, and he was everything on paper that everybody wanted. He was 16 3, Dark Bay. Good mover, quiet, easy to ride, nice jump, but he was a big gangly young horse.
So he didn't have, I guess that maybe dazzle that some of them have. But if you knew what you were looking at, you could see the quality in him. But anyway, he hung around for a while. finally I made Niamh get on him to do a video, and she just had the most perfect ride on him. And I was like, I think you need this horse.
Yeah. It was a one take sales video, which if you know anything about producing a sales video, they tend to decide on that particular day that they won't pick up a lead or They won't go around quietly or they start bucking for no reason Or whatever and they've Niamher done that before but they choose that moment.
Yes, and it's stop filming Yeah, turn the camera off This was just a perfect video and Niamhe had the biggest smile on her face. And so we made that happen So yeah, and that was a horse that really made a lot of dreams come true for me both as an owner and what he made happen for me in terms of getting like my new horse.
Another one. And this actually wasn't a sale, but we have a good friend Wren and she came to work for me. Not work for me, but she wanted riding time and instruction and was happy to fill in some barn help. gaps and pull mains and help ride and do all these amazing things.
She's just a great rider and a great friend. And I had this horse Vaughn that again, had hung around for a while and she started riding him. And it was one of those just perfect matches, they just got along so well. And it wasn't the right time for her to get a horse of her own, but man, I think if.
She could have, that would have been an incredible match. I remember when she took him over to Windura to do country schooling. And I don't think she had really jumped anything like that in a long time. And they just went around jumping all sorts of stuff in just perfect form. She's one of those really naturally gifted riders that can ride anything forward.
And the horse really horses tend to respond really well. Yeah. Really soft. And and she doesn't take anything too seriously, but she's actually got a lot of finesse and yeah, they were really cool to see together. Actually we'll have to include a couple of sweet pictures of the two of them that I took together.
Yeah, that was incredible that day at Windora. Yeah. So those were a couple of. experiences I had with that, but if you've ever watched it happen, it's just magical. That partnership. Speaking of Vaughn, the other topic we wanted to talk about was some of the, behind the scenes stuff.
Like we were just saying when you're trying to make a video and the horse isn't, showing up that day. But we had a lot of misadventures and our reselling day is stuff that goes on behind the scenes before the client shows up. Yeah, particularly this horse Vaughn he was, we could do a whole episode about him honestly, because I would say of all of the horses that I've met.
In the OTTP world, he was one that I don't think we ever quite figured him out. He was just quirky, so talented, so nice to ride, but he was just opinions. He had opinions, but he was also like the kind of horse you'd go out to in the field and he'd grab your zipper and he'd, pull your zipper up and down.
He was just perfect. Personality is just a really cool horse, but we had a client coming to look at him, a local professional. And we decided to just, put him in the round pen or a Hitchcock pen is what we had just before they came, just to make sure is he actually sound before this, high profile client comes over, et cetera.
So we put him in there, Emily turns around and goes to let go of him and close the gate. And he. Jumps over her For whatever reason he'd been in there before but he just barged through the gate. Yeah, so down the hill the Asphalt driveway, which was on a steep hill And disappeared from sight emily's crumpled up like a paper bag by the gate.
I'm like, oh my god. Is she okay? It was also 900 degrees. Oh, yeah, and this particular client who we love very much is always She looks like she stepped out of a, magazine or a commercial. It doesn't matter how hot it is. She's always looked perfect. And here we are chasing this horse around the farm, a hundred degrees.
Totally bedraggled. She shows up, the two of us are just red faced, drenched in sweat. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. We don't know what you're talking about. It's good. Anyway, the horse somehow was fine. She was fine. It all worked out. But, yeah, the things that you Don't think are going to happen another time that sticks out to me.
We also worked [00:12:00] with a really great horse rescue that not only rescued off track thoroughbreds, but of all horses of all types So we didn't always quite know what we were getting in And how handled they were and whatnot. So I went up the hill to the ring, which was out of sight of the barn with some clients and Niamhe was going to bring, we had a bunch for them to look at.
So rather than us having to trek up and down the hill, With the clients back to the bar and he was just going to keep bringing the next one up and take the previous one back. Cause we were a two person operation, just like we are now. Apparently we're adverse to extra help. I don't know. Yeah. And I'm on top of the hill with this horse and they're looking at it and everything's fine, but I'm like looking at my watch and I'm like, okay, she should be back.
Why isn't she back with the next horse? She shows up, I think. And. You acted like everything was fine. Little do I know what had happened downstairs in that. What happened? One of the rescue horses got out of her field. She jumped out. She looked like the most unathletic thing you've ever seen.
And she jumped from a dead standstill uphill over a four foot, three rail fence. And then proceeded to gallop around. Then I think she jumped back in. Or into a different paddock or something. Yeah. It was full chaos down there. And I just come back up with the next horse.
And I'm just like, I'll tell you about it later.
I think we also didn't really have cell reception down in the barn. So I was probably trying to text you or something and there was no response. All right, but it all worked out. So yeah, it's a good time. Yeah. Someday we'll have to share Brave photos of us taking confirmation shots. Cause we could do a whole episode.
We are going to do a whole episode and series on that too. The what people go through to get a confirmation shot, particularly of a very fresh off the track thoroughbred. It's often should be therapy or it should be like, it should be something that you sign up for. Like on a date find out if you're compatible with somebody go take confirmation photos of this kite Make it stand still and look pretty and put its ears.
All right get it to stop swatting the flies Wait, it doesn't fly spray doesn't know what fly spray is. Oh my God. It's amazing that we're still here doing stuff together. Honestly, it is. It's incredible. All right. So next we wanted to talk about a little bit about my mayor, Lizzie. So this was a mayor that I got off the track.
I had sold her full brother as a commission. To a five star event writer, he was spectacular and I could not afford him. And so I got on Pedigree Query. I looked him up to see if he had any siblings and he did. Lo and behold, my mare was more diamond and I had a friend at the track.
Finally, she hadn't raced yet. She hadn't had to work anything. Tracked her down. And we found her before she'd ever raced. And I put my name in with them and said, Hey, if she's done racing. Give me a call. I got a call not much later that she had run one time and she was a real big heavy mare is and had I think been a bit rushed through the breaking training and getting fit process perhaps.
And unfortunately she'd injured herself in her very first start. She fractured her cannon bone. in a couple of areas. I believe what you would call a saucer fracture. So it wasn't like it cut, through the entire bone. It was more of a saucer off the front, but still incredibly painful.
And I went and picked her up and she had what four months of stall rest, five months of stall rest, something like that. It was a pretty severe case. So we will tell the story about her at some point. And her rehab and her story. Cause it's, she's a very special mare. But the first time that after, I don't know, five months of This mare who did not like being in a stall, having to keep her quiet, having her not move and let her legs heal.
And then the first time we let her loose and actually got to see her trot was like, unbelievable. Yeah, she's one of the, one of the nicest moving horses I think I've ever known. And I say horses, cause horse, horses, not thoroughbreds, horses, like all horses, just really incredible, really special.
And also Emily's talking about this injury. It's commonly referred to as bucked shins at the track. This was more severe than that. It was more than that. Yeah. Yeah. But it is a fairly common injury. And when it's a less severe case, it's usually not that big of a deal. Hers was quite severe and we weren't really sure she was going to make it through the rehab at one point, but yeah, we'll definitely talk about her in a later episode.
Cause she's very special to both of us. It would be a good kind of underdog thing to talk about because the interesting thing about that fracture and functions in general is that they heal and the horse can go back and do anything. It's just getting them through the process of healing.
Cause it's a very painful injury, but once it heals, it's actually, I think like most bone injuries that can even be stronger than before. So not a career limiting at all type of [00:18:00] injury. Really interesting. story there. So not all injuries and not all gaps in horses race records are things that are going to prevent them from going on to a future.
It's just something that we'll talk about in one of our, I think a lot of our OTTB evaluates episodes. Once we look at the race records. Yeah, definitely. All right. So should we pivot and talk about the podcast a little bit? I think so. We waxed on, have I waxed on enough? Maybe I like talking more in the morning.
I don't know. I think you do. I, so I have to record in the morning, you have to record at night and I don't know how that's going to work. I know. All right. Okay. Oh, the other thing I wanted to talk about quickly As we start getting into the podcast and this past year, some of the most, and we've met some of the most amazing people through this and the friendships that we've formed and just the sense of community.
I feel like that is creating around us. I don't think that we'd even, That had not occurred to me when we decided to start a no TV podcast. It was mostly like, let's get some education out there. Let's tell some stories. But these have turned into lifelong friends, I feel like. And yeah, I feel like when it first started happening, because I was more in the public.
space than Emily was initially, like it started happening and I'd start telling her about something and she's what do you mean someone recognized you from the podcast? And I'm like, I don't know. I was just at this thing and talking about it. And then all of a sudden it just kept happening.
And I think it first happened and we'll talk about the William Fox pit clinic coming up, but I unfortunately got COVID. I was supposed to also go William Fox pit. Top eventor came and taught clinic down the road from us and we were both planning to go and audit and help out and Niamh had set up to interview some of the thoroughbred.
Riders and owners afterwards, but I'm home with COVID. I couldn't go and Niamhe's texting me. She's Oh my God, somebody just recognized me from the podcast. And this was only a couple of months in and I was like, you're kidding me. I think we were like four months in and that was Madeline. Hi Madeline.
Hi Madeline. And she took a selfie with me and I was like, this is surreal. This is crazy. You talked to a bunch of people there that knew who we were and had been listening. And yeah, it was really training. Yeah. It was really incredible. That moment of wow, this is actually working.
Like people are listening. We're making a difference. So that has been really special. I want to give a little special shout out to Taylor Cusack because she's definitely one that, we've had her on a couple of times. She was in one of the Lucinda episodes, and she actually became a client of mine as a photographer, and I got to photograph her and her amazing off the track thoroughbred, Darcy.
They did a Lord of the Rings inspired photo shoot with me and she kept sending me all of these amazing photos of like inspiration photos. And it was just like, bows and arrows and capes and this and that. And she kept saying just let me know if it's too much. And I was like, if you're looking for me to, tell you to pull it back or do less.
That's not going to happen. And so I drove down a couple hours away to photograph her and one of her friends. And it was just the most magical photo shoot. And yeah, Taylor's become a very special friend for me and for both of us. But yeah, she's a pretty amazing person. No, it's so cool. I don't know why I just said that like I'm a surfer dude, but unexpected and just really awesome.
And I got to meet Taylor for the first time at the Lucinda Green Clinic and yeah, it was really cool. We hung out, we had a beer, talked about horses and. It just was very cool. Yeah. All right. Shall we talk through our survey results a little bit? Sure. So we put out a survey probably about a month ago, maybe a little longer.
If you have not gotten to fill it out, you still can just go to OTTB on tap. com slash survey. And just just a little note here though, just nice comments only. No, we really are. So I don't know about Niamh, I can't talk for her, but I actually. In my real life, I'm a user experience designer so I am constantly reaching out to people for feedback and criticism and ways to make things better and make them how the user would like them to be a bit better.
So anytime that I can get Data and information about what you like what you want to hear your favorite things your least favorite thing So that's what this is all about. So if you haven't gotten a chance please go fill it out It only takes a couple minutes and we'll put a link in there too, but the episode notes.
But yeah, we wanted to just briefly talk through the results we've gotten so far, which have been positive. I know you're worried, Niamh. Everyone hates us, obviously. It looks like about half of our listeners listen every episode, actually more than half, almost 60%. And then, which I think is amazing, and we love your support social media seems to be the top way that people are discovering us.
However, sounds like Spotify is recommending us now. So that was really good feedback to hear. Yeah. We do our best to try and work through using the best types of keywords and whatnot to make us turn up in Google searches so people can find us. So that's very important that we are [00:24:00] findable. Let's see some of our favorite episodes, which is going to lead into what we're going to talk about next.
But we asked what your favorite episode or guest interview was. A lot of people said Jessica Redman. Which is no surprise. She's a favorite of ours. And Jessica and I've been talking for years going back to, Hey, I've got this client coming. They're really great too. Hey, I've got this client coming and don't let them on anything hot.
I don't know about that, but just comparing notes. And so it's been cool to follow that and get to talk with her more as she is still very much in the buying and selling game. Also a bunch of people are liking our confirmation evaluation. Windora Camp and Madeline got a shout out and I really like this somebody wrote in and said that they really love listening to June Hillman's episode as a lot of it resonated with me as the manager of a small thoroughbred breeding and racing operation.
They also like Chelsea's makeover episodes as well so I like that kind of shout out because we only did one episode with June but she is such a pivotal part and such a like backbone of the breeding racing and rehoming industry. Yeah, she's got a hand in basically every single aspect of it. Yes.
A lot of shout outs for the makeover trainers and a couple of people actually said they liked the episodes about my past with my old horse, Alex. I think we still have to finish that story. So we'll get to that at some point. So no, this is really great. And we'd love to hear more. Do you have anything to add?
No, I think you covered it all pretty well. Get this girl a drink, my goodness.
So the really cool thing to hear too, was people recognize how nervous we were in the beginning and how we are improving and getting more comfortable because, it was a bit terrifying to have a microphone put in your face.
I give our guests a lot of credit. Yeah. Yeah, because they're doing this a lot of times once and how nervous they must be and they come on across as great. So I know. And it's so funny too, because often the response that we'll get from some of our guests is, Oh, I don't know.
I don't know if I'm going to be too nervous. And we're like, trust us, we're going to set you up for success. And I try to edit everybody in a way that makes them sound really coherent and. Just, we want it to sound really conversational and easy and everything like that, but we do our best to make it like a pretty painless process for everybody, ourselves included.
Yes. All right. So let's dig into our different categories of episodes and we're going to call out some really cool ones that you may be interested in listening to. Yeah, so we went through all of our episodes and broke them into different groupings depending on, what the general theme was for them.
So the first one was clinic recaps, which I was super excited to do. When we first started the podcast, we had come up with I think a list of a hundred topics that we wanted to talk about. It's funny that we moved away from that list because We don't need it. It's amazing. We have a Niamher ending list of things that we want to cover and it's often swayed by our mood or who we talked to that week or things like that.
So I promise you, if you're on the list of people that we've reached out to recently, we are super excited to get you on. But the clinic recaps, I was super excited to do just because, I think it's relatable content. It's the kind of thing where, and actually a lot of the feedback that we got from doing the clinic recaps was Oh my God, it's so nice to hear how other people feel about being in an environment like that with a, a big name trainer.
On a off the track thoroughbred, maybe looking around and wondering if they deserve to be there and things like that. So I'm so grateful that we had that experience with all of these riders and they really varied in their skill level. It's, sometimes professionals on green horses or amateurs on a horse that's got more experience and things like that.
So we, last spring we did the recap with William Fox Pitt. And he taught at Kehlani Farm, which is local to us. He's actually going to be back in March, I think the second week of March. So if you are an off the track thoroughbred rider and you have signed up for the clinic, reach out to us because we would love to do another version of this.
And I'll try not to have COVID this time. And it was such a cool clinic though. I'm sorry. I missed it because he, it seems like his teaching style is really him and Lucinda are a bit similar in some ways in that it didn't look like he had a lot of classic show jumping course material set up. No, it wasn't obstacles to get the horse over.
Yeah. It didn't always really even look like jumps from what I could tell. No. When I helped set up the jumps for the second day, After the first day was done, I took a picture of it and we went to the cocktail party. I showed a couple of the riders that were participating both days. I was like, you won't even believe what he set up for tomorrow.
And they were all extremely nervous. But they all did very well. They all did so well. Yeah. He and Lucinda both want horses that are independent thinkers and riders that know how to funnel the horses, or as Lucinda calls it, squeezing the tube of toothpaste out in front of you and just getting on with it.
And it's, yeah, it's very cool. But yeah. And then episode 17 is the William Fox pit. And I have to say too. Niamhe had this idea, I want to make her embarrassed here, because she had this idea that she was going to [00:30:00] interview William Fox Pitt about Thoroughbreds, and I don't know that either of us really thought she was actually going to do it, because again, we were still so new to this, I know that was, episode 17 sounds like we had a lot of episodes behind us, but really, we still felt very new to this, and I was sick as a dog and she sends me a text message and it's just a video of her interviewing William about thoroughbreds and the things that he says are. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. We need to also re share that, I think, now that we have a lot more listeners.
Yeah. Because it's really incredible to hear what one of, if not the best writers in the world, has to say about Thoroughbreds. Yeah, he was ranked world number one for a while, I believe he says, they are the answer. Yes. Yeah. He had so many great quotables from that short interview. He was so generous, unscripted.
He didn't know what he was going to ask him. She just walked up to him with her phone and said, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I will say we did have a cocktail party the night before that. I also photographed and I did get pretty chummy with William, which did help for trying to interview him the next day. Sure, absolutely.
But you didn't give him the questions ahead of time or anything? No. Anything like that. And that was one take yeah. Yeah, it was amazing. They call me one take O'Connell in the Biz
Oh. Now she's just gonna start laughing. Oh, and then we also did a recap with Lucinda Green, which you can find in episodes 27 and 30. I am obsessed with Lucinda. I rode with her a couple years ago, I Niamher need an excuse to go and watch her teach. She is just genuine horse girl through and has she feels like she's got hundreds of years of horse experience under her belt.
I just don't understand. She's just an incredible human and she loves thoroughbreds so much. And she was so annoyed that I wanted to interview her. She really was. And as soon as she found out I was there to talk to her about thoroughbreds, she lit up like a Christmas tree and completely she's why didn't you tell me we were going to be talking about thoroughbreds?
And it was so funny. It was so funny. And she She answered the same questions that I asked William and same thing just came out with this just encyclopedia of Her history with thoroughbreds and was really genuine and we'll repost both of those interviews because They're worth watching and listening and seeing the two of them I think the video is really amazing because you just see the two of them going through their brain a little bit and thinking about that horse and You Watching their faces when they talk about them is very cool.
So question listeners, who would you like to see Niamhe interview next? Ooh, let us know. All right, so moving on. I think we had two more clinic recaps. And it's funny because I don't think this is even something that we thought of. No, they just came along and then we, , oh, the Lucinda Green episodes are 27 yeah, I saw that.
And then we had Kathy Goodman and her Pressure Proof Clinics, which was episodes 27 and 28. And Niamh actually rode in the clinic before we interviewed Kathy, and I don't think either of us really knew what we were getting into, but it was a super fun, at least for me, because I was on the ground. Eve catch wrote a horse that she'd Niamher even seen before.
Yeah. In this really cool clinic about learning to deal with pressure and how pressure affects you as a rider and learning some different techniques. Look those up because I thought it was a really interesting technique and Kathy was so fun to interview. Yeah, she's great. And then lastly, we had Madeline Conley and her experience at Windura Camp with Boyd Martin, Silva Martin, Peter Wilde and many other professionals, episodes 37 and 38, really fantastic interviews.
I thought Madeline was wonderful, personable, so easy to talk to. Yeah, Madeline's amazing. And we do want to have, or I would love to avoid the three questions. Not quite as famous as William Fox Pitt, or at least in Shanghai, but he's more of a celebrity in the sense that he's a, Tough person to get ahold of.
Yes, you may just have to corner him at a horse show. Yeah, I'm going to have to, I think that's, what's going to have to happen. Or maybe the next time Madeline comes up to ride with him or something. Yeah. Yeah. Have to corner him because he is such a great proponent of the off track thoroughbred.
Yeah. All right. What's our next category? Pretty special category. We do have something coming up for this in the month of February, but aftercare organizations, which are near and dear to our hearts. If it wasn't for aftercare organizations, I think the cycle of racehorses would be, Greatly different.
My personal RRP hopeful horse, Oscar came through turning for home and that's a organization that we would love to sit down with their leader and speak with her about that organization. But let's talk about which ones have we done this year? Great. Yeah. So we started with episode 10.
We interviewed. Bonnie McRae from After the Races. Yeah. And they are local to us. They were located in where? Fair Hill? Yeah. Fair Hill, Maryland area. I think they are still Fair Hill and Oxford and they focus on rehab and rehoming thoroughbreds. They do often do a good bit of retraining on them.
So that is a really wonderful organization to check out. And Bonnie also was awesome to have on. She tells a great [00:36:00] couple of really great stories, including her ride in the Mongolian Derby? Which sounds just wild. So check out episode 10 for that. And then one that was very special to us was more recently.
Yeah, that was Pastured Place and Ali Rawls. Season two, episode two we learned more about how they put together their 501c3 organization and went from being a racing group that loves race horses and cares for them afterwards to a proper aftercare organization. They're doing incredible things in the thoroughbred world.
They're a real standout in the industry. And I think. Quite a benchmark for other racing groups to try to pattern their businesses through. Yeah, absolutely. They are, they've come along very quickly in only a couple of years and they have just a really fabulous. aftercare program. So check out Pastured Place season two, episode two for that one.
And Niamh, you mentioned that we've got something coming up for February. Do you want to give a little teaser for that? February is aftercare initiative month. And so we're hoping to do a bunch of little mini sodes about aftercare ori organizations in the United States. So if you have an organization that you'd like to nominate, please let us know and we will reach out and see if we can get an interview with one of their directors or leaders, et cetera.
So absolutely. Next. And so here's what an interesting thing as we're category categorizing all of these episodes, it really showed us areas that we'd done a lot and done a little. I think that we really only interviewed, unless they fell into another category, one actual person that's like the practitioner for off track thoroughbreds.
And that would be Alyssa Pitt, which was episode 12. And she told us all about body work and it's a really fascinating episode. Yeah, I'd love to have her on again, actually, cause she went in to a lot of the methodology of transitioning a horse from racing life to the first couple of months and gave some really good tips of what to expect and how to help manage the horse physically and mentally and emotionally as well.
Yeah, it was really fascinating to hear her talk. So definitely love to have her and other different types of practitioners on next year. The next category, which is probably no surprise to any of our longtime listeners is the RRP trainer chronicles. This, I think really spearheaded a lot of the conversation.
A lot of things for us, but yeah, we we followed along with four groups of trainers. It started episode 14 where we kicked it off and we introduced all four of the trainers, I just want to give you all the kudos for editing and learning how to do all this stuff because she interviewed four sets of people. I think I was still sick during this time or something. And Somehow stitched it all together and it sounded amazing. Oh yeah. I forgot that I interviewed them by myself.
See, the last year has been a blur for us guys. I need to think back that far. It's yeah, I know. So we had Chelsea O'Brien episodes 25 and 39 of hers really stood out for us. Chelsea O'Brien is also a Pastured Place representative with her amazing OTTB UB. She's become a good friend now as well, and we really enjoyed following along her journey.
Yes we had Annika, episodes 20 and 34, and I was really impressed by Annika's story and how she's come from different backgrounds. She grew up in Europe with a dressage background. Now she's living in Fargo, North Dakota, which I don't think those two things normally go together. And she rides both Western and English.
She brings along off track thoroughbreds, former broodmares, which I don't know if you've ever dealt with a lot of broodmares so that have just been turned out and procreating for years. But a lot of people, and I think Anika did too, liken them to mustangs where they've they live in a herd.
Yeah. They don't really get a lot, they get handling, they get their feet trimmed, they get their, whatever is necessary, but it's not like they're coming into, generally speaking, coming into a barn every day and being worked with. So taking them on can be quite a challenge.
Her episodes are 20 and 34, if I didn't say that already, but I really, I found those to be so interesting. And then we also had Julianne and Ashley episodes 24 and 40 from upstate New York and their wonderful off track thoroughbred, who just seems like such a good egg. And they did the partners.
team competition at the makeover, which was an interesting, fascinating. Yeah. And then we had Lauren Bond, who has also become a friend and I've now become a client of hers. She's a saddle repair and reseller in our area. And episode 21, you can hear all about her journey in the book. on her way to the RRP, which she was unfortunately not able to take her mare this year.
But she's just a fascinating person to listen to. We got a huge response to her episodes. Yes, we had, she had a second episode and I can't, I don't know what number it was. Sorry.
But yes, definitely look hers up. Yeah. And then we got to, we did a little wrap up where [00:42:00] they either wrote in or sent us voice messages for our episode 43, but it would be fun to have them on again, see where they are now. Yeah. And I think that the two of us. can say that from doing the RRP Trainer Chronicles series, it really got the two of us thinking about the makeover for this year.
And you guys did highly influence my decision to get an off the track thoroughbred again and hopefully aim him for this year's makeover. So thank you guys for that. And we'll have to get some advice from them. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of it. What's it like to ride at Kentucky? Terrifying. All right, moving on to our underdog stories.
This, I think, is another series that sort of crept up on us, but we both feel very passionate about this and promoting OTTBs that have either Have had an injury or something set back roadblock and they overcome both the rider and the horses. And so we had some really great episodes here.
We definitely want to do more again, reach out if you've got a great underdog story, but what were some highlights for you from this? I love the Brian and Bombino episode that was episode 32 his journey with a very quirky off the track thoroughbred who we've actually known for years.
He's just got a huge personality and he's so funny and so positive. He makes you feel like you can do anything. In fact, he actually helped me get up the nerve to interview William Fox Pitt. We'll have to do a check in with him at some point, because I know that they have actually been.
back out competing after their setback this year. Yeah. We also had a great episode with Caitlin about El Patron, her thoroughbred, who was actually bred at the farm that Niamh and I keep our horses at now. That was episode 36. We loved interviewing Heather Gillette and her OTTB Vinnie episode 19.
We'd love to catch up with Heather again to see where they're, how they're doing. I know they had a little bit of a setback this year after Kentucky, but it sounds like he's come back stronger than ever. So fingers crossed for them. Yeah. And then we also had in season two, episode five, Juliana and Nemo who participated at the RRP this year.
After setback, both for Jules and for Nemo but his journey through kissing spine surgery and rehab is definitely one to listen to. And then we also can't leave out, I don't think we specifically tagged this as an underdog story, Kirsten and Tango, episode 26. Was really fabulous one.
She's got a great story and that was one of Niamhe's personal horses that ended up being an advanced level event horse. So yeah, pretty cool. And actually he recently sold to a girl who just had her first competition with him and finished on her dressage score and he looks absolutely incredible. And so it's just really cool to still be able to follow along with him.
Yeah, it's really cool. That is one of the great things about Facebook and social media is how you can creep from afar.
All right. So we have another category here which we're calling resellers, but I think that we actually didn't interview a whole bunch of resellers this year. It's something that I think we'd like to expand on. Maybe have a little round table session. We had. June Hillman in episode 31, which is fabulous to hear how she gets to know them from conception through birth, through being the cutest little babies to going out and racing and then coming back and then she can rehome them.
So love that episode. But we also have Jessica Redman, who's had several episodes with us. Yeah. And Jessica has been incredibly generous with her time and to allow us to pick her brain a little bit and get some behind the scenes information about what her world is like and, and talk about some of the struggles and the ups and downs of the reseller world.
And just to be really open and forthright about, it's a difficult industry and and it's rewarding in its own right, but also it's incredibly challenging. And and the fact that she's persevering and still out there, buying and selling is really incredible. And so we really appreciate her taking the time to join our podcast.
Yeah, absolutely. She does not shy away from the tough topics, which is. Yeah. We've covered everything with pricing and first rides how she feels about how to buy her. Yeah. By your etiquette. And then she, like he was saying very generously gave her time to talk about bloodlines and market trends.
So we really appreciate her clear nose on sense. Approach and hope to collaborate more with her in the future. Yeah. Yeah then we launched a brand new series as if we didn't have enough to do here.
Yeah. Goodness. We're almost done guys. I promise. Our OTT beyond tap evaluate series. We launched that on a whim. And it was a hit like everything else. But we put out a post and said, Hey, submit your horse's jockey club name and a confirmation photo. And we will tell you what we think.
Yeah. And don't tell us anything else about your horse and we're going to see if we're right or not. Yeah. And it was mostly , cause [00:48:00] this is all we do is send each other, photos and confirmation photos and pedigrees. And we've just been doing it for, I would say we made this joke last episode, I think, about the amount of open tabs in Equibase I had open on my phone, which was like over a hundred.
And we've been honing our eye for a long time, honing our understanding of bloodlines and things like that. And, obviously there, there's outliers and exceptions to every single thing. And as Emily was probably going to say you don't ride the bloodlines and things like that, but there are some similarities and some trends and things like that.
I was also going to say, we've also put our money where our mouth is and we've gone to Western Union and sent money off. And then a couple of days later, a horse appears and then you truly see, the proof is in the pudding and enabled to, to have the confidence to do that.
You have to have years of studying this stuff. No, exactly. I was just in that jeweler office the other day to get my necklace lengthened. And all I could think about was the last time I was in here, I was literally sending money to Finger Lakes for, I'm sure they don't remember me, but for what you thought was a four year old and was actually a three year old, that one.
Oops. Moving on. Anyway, we've launched two volumes and we are going to be continuing that series into the next year. We do have a form to send your horses in to enter them. And we'll populate that more too, if you're interested. The other category that we had was just. Niamhe and Emily talking about stuff. You make that sound so fun. I know but we have had some fun episodes, just the two of us this year.
Yeah, we have. Episode 18, where we talked about scouting horses. I think that might be scouting the way. Yeah, probably. Thanks. Thanks chat. My, we tell the story about my horse, Alex. Some of those episodes are four, six, 15 and 16. And we talk about the unforgettable incident.
where my horse jumped into a lake on a cross country horse course and went completely underwater. And I had to wade in and rescue him. That did happen. Yeah, we were actually talking to Emily's mom about that the other day. And she was like, and it wasn't funny at the time at all. No, it was not funny at the time at all.
And I think My dad actually filled out our survey and he said that was his favorite episode, by the way. So it's pretty cute. But then he said funny, but dangerous also. I think that could be said about all stories involving off the track thoroughbreds. And then we did talk about your first OTTB Riley episode 11, which was where I talk about a lot of the stuff that I felt like, I did wrong with my first off the track thoroughbred and some things that I did right.
Absolutely. And we did do an episode number seven where we had polled our Facebook group, OTTB market. And we share some things in there about what resellers wish that buyers knew. And then we also have an episode about what I wish I knew about buying an off track thoroughbred for the first time.
Yeah. We'll have to get back to a couple of those too, because they were fun. Just in our spare time. All right. It has been quite a year and it's been amazing to share these stories and connect with everybody like we were talking about. Huge shout out to all of our guests. We could not do this without you because otherwise it's just the two of us and invariably one of us has had too much coffee and one has had not enough.
So
Oh, quick shout out though, our most popular episode. Do you know which one it was, Niamh? I'm going to guess it was Jessica Redman. Yeah, I think it was episode 8 Assessments and First Rides the Benchmark Way has been our highest number episode so far. So we can't wait for more. And Yeah, we're so grateful for all of you guys.
And we can't wait to bring you even more fun stuff in 2025. All right. Don't forget to subscribe on ottbontap. com. Leave us a review. We'll send you stickers, but you gotta let us know your address for us to do that. And yeah, we do post a lot on social media. We are on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram. I think our Facebook group is probably the one where we post the most updates.
So if you're interested, in things Between episodes or if we take a week off or and we also do a lot of teasers on there. So find us on Facebook and you'll get the most up to date information and join our mailing list, of course, but until next time, cheers,