I've been interested in adopting pacers for a while now....?

Question

I've read up on pacers and trotters and would eventually like to adopt a pacer off the track. For those of you who work with them, or who owns a former racer, are their personalities a lot cooler than say, a thoroughbred? I currently own an anglo-arab that really just has too much energy for me, but the research that I've done says that the harness horses are calmer and pretty intelligent. The horse would live on a 600+ acre cattle ranch in the Ozarks of Missouri, and would be ridden in anything from Western to English, to even an Aussie stock saddle by me and my husband. If you do suggest one, then where are the best agencies to adopt from?

Answer 1

My best friend trained "harnies" (Standardbreds) for the track, and she worked with well over 700 different horses.  She worked with colts, geldings, fillies, mares.  She worked with everything from yearlings just being broken to harness to rehabs that were in their teens, coming back to the track after a lay-up.  Her take on Standardbreds:  to say that they are cooler than a Thoroughbred is an understatement.  With rare exceptions, they're easygoing horses that are a little slow on the uptake and not at all given to temperament.  

My friend had a pacer just off the track that she was trying to find a home for, and she had me come out to the training center where the horse was stabled to ride him.  I brought my saddle and we saddled and bridled the horse, who was a 7-year-old bay gelding that had been racing since he was 2, and I got up on him and rode him around the training track.  He paced the whole way around, was pulling like crazy on the bit, but he listened to the aids and seemed like a willing horse to ride.  When I pulled up on him, my friend told me that was only the second time he'd ever been ridden.  I have to say that I would never even consider being the second person up on a Thoroughbred just off the track, but I would have no problems doing that again with a Standardbred.

I didn't end up with the horse, because I wanted to do dressage, and he was so confirmed a pacer that he'd raced free-legged, but she did find a home for him with people who wanted a riding horse.

If you do get a racer off the track, you have to be prepared to spend some time re-training it on the bit.  Harness racers tend to be very heavy on the bit, that's the way they're taught, and you have to spend some time teaching them to be light.  

These are the URLS for some Standardbred adoption programs:

http://www.4thehorses.com/horsesavailabl...

http://www.exracers.com/stb_links.htm

http://www.ontarioracingcommission.ca/in...

Good luck!