Reschooling the Thoroughbred: How to Buy and Retrain a Racehorse

By Peggy Jett Pittenger

Book Overview

A guide to buying and retraining a racehorse. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0498064387
• ISBN13: 9780498064388
• Release Date: January 1967
• Publisher: Yoseloff
• Length: 172 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Good Intro to OTTB s

The title is a bit misleading since this book doesn't contain any substantive training instruction and the "expert" horse trainer may be bored by it, but I think it was a very good addition to my library as a simple overview of the off-track Thoroughbred. (I try to learn SOMEthing from every source.) The chapters on soundness and previous training were informative, especially for people who have not hung out at race tracks. Even though the photos are murky by today's standards and a little "dated", I found several that provided good illustrations. There are lots of pictures of horses and riders to critique or emulate. Pittenger's attitudes about training and care are, for the most part, still contemporary. I will reccommend this book as a resource to friends who rescue Thoroughbreds from the track.

Reschooling the Thoroughbred

I started riding TB's in Virginia as a 16-yr old. When I was 50 I bought my first TB off the track. He was an "old campaigner" with 5 years of racing, a very kind guy, but an extremely challenging project. Despite my obvious experience with riding in general and Thoroughbreds in particular I might have given up on him. I found this book to be very inspirational and helpful. I could better train him knowing how his life as a racehorse had been conducted. 7 years later, he's now a mellow 15-year, restored to soundness and a sense of purpose, happy in his work, large of heart, popular in the barn, and a big puppy dog. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who loves the breed and wants to give a racehorse a second chance.

Wonderful, excellent, 5-star rating...buy this book first!

I absoluetly loved this book. I purchased an older version after my gerbil chewed up the library book that I hadn't had time to read. Later on, I was ever thankful about the gerbil incident...it caused me to find my dream job and my destiny with the thoroughbred breed. For the review about the person who thinks that he/she knows all about thoroughbreds and this book was not worth it, I strongly disagree...I know quite a bit myself having owned them and having worked with a relative of mine, Jenine Sahadi (who's trained several BC winners). She, too, found this book to be insightful and informative. Seems that the previous reaction's author was a bit jealous...or found the book too hard to handle because of her lack of knowledge (or his lack) of the breed itself. This is a delightful book that has been republished and updated 3 times. Be careful, however-retraining a thoroughbred is for expirianced trainers only, not the inexpirianced or even expirianced riders. These horses have seriously hurt and killed many people, including myself. Those who seriously love thoroughbreds will enjoy this book. This is the best book on reschooling TBs I've found and one of my all-time favorite books, period. Before you train your next thoroughbred, either fresh off the track or fresh to start, take a look at this book and the stories of success, photos, and information. You deserve it, and so does your horse. Also, it's good for reschooling other breeds of horses off the track, too...lots of valueable info for quarter horses and arabs off the track, as well.

Very helpful; provided insight

I found the book to be very helpful. Brought up all the little points I wouldn't have considered (but are very logical) such as racehorses are used to having the rider given a leg up so it might react negatively to a usual mount. Forewarned is forearmed! The transition from racing to dressage has so far gone smoothly due in large part to the help I received from this book.