dressage

For 60 days straight over the winter at Will Walden's Palm Meadows base in Florida, MGISW Rhetorical (Not This Time) underwent a different kind of training. Instead of being turned out for the off-season like so many horses, his trainer decided that it was time to unveil a new project where skills like dressage would be emphasized. The work that the gelding put in over those months has paid off and now the New York-bred Horse of the Year owned by Gary Barber, Cheyenne Stable and Wachtel Stable will point...

Every year, about 17,000 Thoroughbreds are born in North America. Let's assume half of them are colts: 8,500 male horses bred with ambition in their blood. Of those, maybe 50--if we're being generous--will ever make it to stud. The fillies often retain value as broodmares, but even then the industry quietly accumulates thousands of horses every single year whose careers end without a clear path forward. And for far too many of them, that path ends at the slaughterhouse. We talk about racing fatalities in terms of breakdowns on the...

The T.I.P. Thoroughbred of the Year Award and the T.I.P. Young Rider of the Year Award for 2025 were announced by the Jockey Club Thoroughbred Incentive Program (T.I.P.). The 2025 Thoroughbred of the Year is McDreamy (Expense Account). Registered with The Jockey Club as Deb's Expense Acc, McDreamy is a 19-year-old gelding that retired from the racetrack in 2011 to begin training as a hunter/jumper. Deb's Expense Acc was bred in Oklahoma by Greg Frye and raced 25 times with two wins, five seconds, and five thirds, winning $51,043. In...

Charlotte Dujardin has said that she "fully respects" the decision to suspend her for one year after a video showed the double individual Olympic dressage champion repeatedly hitting a student's horse with a whip. Dujardin was provisionally suspended by the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) on July 23--the week that the Paris Olympics started--as it launched an investigation into a video from four years ago showing her making what she described as "an error of judgement" during a coaching session. The FEI announced on Thursday that Dujardin had admitted...

The Jockey Club Thoroughbred Incentive Program (T.I.P.) Championships finished Sunday, Oct. 27, which included participation from 206 Thoroughbreds and 210 riders. The show took place at Stable View in Aiken, SC, from Oct. 24-27. Cash prized totaling $2,000 were awarded to the 42 divisions, including hunters, jumpers, English pleasure, dressage, combined test, Western pleasure, ranch riding, competitive trail and in-hand competition. "The 2024 T.I.P. Championships was a phenomenal display of the versatility and potential of Thoroughbreds in careers after their time on the track," said Kristin Werner, coordinator of T.I.P....

In its 21st year, the New Vocations All-Thoroughbred Charity Horse Show Presented by Heider Family Stables raised more than $180,000 when it was held May 31-June 2 at Highfields Event Center, the non-profit said in a release Wednesday afternoon. The annual show brought together 179 retired Thoroughbred racehorses from 11 different states with all proceeds going to directly support efforts to rehab, retrain and rehome retiring racehorses. Exhibitors competed in a variety of classes including dressage, hunter, jumper, in-hand, Western and pleasure. New classes this year included a Mini Jumper...

A day of clinics and guided schooling opportunities has been added to the Thoroughbred Makeover and National Symposium, according to the organization Wednesday. The additional day, which will be offered Friday, Oct. 11, will feature participants in the disciplines of dressage, show hunter, show jumper and ranch work that did not qualify for the Finale Championships. The symposium runs Oct. 9-12. Clinics will follow a format of a small group working with the clinician, who will be a judge from preliminary competition, while guided schooling will be short individual sessions...

Knockemdown (American Pharoah), an unraced 4-year-old gelding, earned a trip to the "winner's circle" Saturday with his win in the 2023 Thoroughbred Makeover. The winner in the dressage division, he bested ten other discipline's top scorers to take the honors. "I want to thank Kristen Goncharoff at e5 Racing Thoroughbreds for making the phone call, and Bob [Edwards], the leader of e5, who was looking to rehome this horse," says winning rider Alison O'Dwyer. "Wesley Ward had him in training at Turfway and when he didn't think much of him,...

Thoroughbred Charities of America has extended its support of the Retired Racehorse Project's Thoroughbred Makeover and National Symposium through 2021. RRP will host a "double Makeover" for both 2020 and 2021 entries at the Kentucky Horse Park Oct. 12-17, 2021. Some aspects of the 2020 TCA Thoroughbred Makeover will be offered virtually this year, including seminars (presented as webinars), the Thoroughbred Aftercare Summit, a virtual 5K, the vendor fair, and the innovative Makeover Master Class training demonstration and discussion. "The work of the Retired Racehorse Project is an integral part...