I'm very excited to share that I'm one of the participating trainers in the ReBrand Initiative: Trainer's Challenge! It's similar to other makeover projects I did in Colorado, but this one is specific to Standardbreds. I'll be aiming my horse towards jumpers, but of course his opinion matters so we'll have to see what he prefers to do for his career post-track racing.
This story begins when I applied two weeks ago for a trainer position, and five people were accepted, myself included. The program is kind of a "racehorse makeover" to show how nice these Standardbred horses are that are coming off the track, and how they can be trained for new careers and be competitive. I'll be blogging and sharing videos, training techniques, photos, all kinds of info to draw attention to the breed and to the aftercare organization for good publicity! There will be a trainer competition aspect to it, the participating trainers will get points for attention on social media when posts are reshared, get likes, comments, etc, as well as points being assigned for challenges and the horseshow at the end.
I'll have 90 days to put my horse under saddle, train him, and (hopefully) teach him to jump. Then I'll take him to Nationals at the Horse Park in NJ in Sept, and I'll compete with him there. If the horse doesn't get adopted at Nationals in NJ, I can give him back to the rescue and he's much more likely to be adopted for having the training and show experience.
My horse is coming from the aftercare organization MMXX Standardbreds, and he's going to be traveling here to Southern Virginia from upstate New York. He's 8 years old and has only had harness racing training as a pacer, so he pulled a jockey in a two wheeled racing cart called a sulky at the track. He has never been saddled or ridden, but has had significant let down and turnout since his last race in 2023.
These are the photos I have of him from MMXX Standardbreds, he's a good looking fellow and I'm super excited to meet him! His name is Special Tyler and he raced 45 times with 9 wins over his career, only retiring because he was "stalling out in the speed department" which is the best reason to retire. Everyone is happy to hear there were no injuries!
Keep an eye out, Special Tyler will arrive in the next week or so here at Bit of Honey Training and I'll have so many fun details, photos, and stories to share!
In the meantime, you can check out Sweetpeacefuldream, Doit's Cat, or Grace , who all were part of past makeover challenges in which I participated. Sweetpeacefuldream went to the Kentucky Horse Park for the big show at the end of her Retired Racehorse Project challenge in 2015, Grace and Doit's Cat went to the National Western Complex for Horse Expo in their Equine Comeback Challenge years, 2014 and 2015/2016 respectively. Here's to excitedly looking forward to a wildly fun summer!
