Page 82 - Speedhorse November 2019

LOTS OF HANDLING
“The good thing about it is that every time you do something with these babies, they are learning – whether they’re standing patiently while they are getting trimmed, or you are leading them here or there. It’s good for their minds and they learn to trust, and accept our leadership,” Casner says.
Babies that are just kicked out in
the pasture with their mothers and
never handled, or with a group of
other yearlings, don’t get enough early education and have to come up from behind when they are started in training. Then it takes more effort to get them
to where you want them to be. “A lot of ranch horses have minimal handling; they might get saddled a few times as a two year old and then they get turned out again and brought back later for training.” They miss out on a lot of groundwork and are never quite as easy to handle on the ground.
“Those horses are happiest when a rider is on their back; that’s the main way they’ve been handled and that’s where their comfort level is. Often those horses are not at ease with people on foot and are really wary and ‘watchy.’ They haven’t been handled much from the ground, so when they are in a pen and people come around, they are nervous and suspicious. Once you get hold of them and put a saddle on them and get on, they are good because all the training time has been spent on their back.” They might not be as safe to handle on the ground, however.
“When you start trimming those inexperienced horses or working on their feet, you have to be careful; a lot of horses on those big breeding farms and ranches are not very good about picking their feet up. When you start doing
this when they are small, however, they become very much at ease with it, and it’s safer for the horse and the human. I can’t remember any of my guys getting kicked. They know how to move around a horse and position themselves, but the horses are used to it. This is the way you want it, because otherwise those babies can kick you so quick and hard; they are lightning fast! You don’t want that to happen. If it does, it’s generally because of negligence in handling, or
someone moves up to them too fast
and scares them.”
“We humans wouldn’t go to the gym for
the first time and do an intense workout with heavy weights,” he says. “We’d be body-sore and possibly injure ourselves. It’s better to work into this kind of program gradually. I like to prepare young horses for the breaking process, working them in the round pen and going on from there. If the sale is in September, we’ll start working them in the round pen in July. We start slowly and incrementally. We’ll also drive them in these initial training stages.
“Whether I sell them or keep them, they are fit,” he explains. “If I keep them, we’ve gotten a jump on the whole program and have given them a much better opportunity to be a racehorse and get to the races early
– which is so important. You want to get them to the races in August or September of their two-year-old year. In order to do that, they have to be able to go through training without all of the detrimental things that so often happen to young horses when you start breaking them.”
Many young horses develop shin problems. “I start putting all our babies on the vibration plate in February when they are short yearlings,” says Casner. “They will have eight months of that before they are broke or before they go through the sale. This creates a horse that is better prepared for the breaking process, has a better opportunity to stay sound through the training, and has a better chance of getting to the races as an early two year old in August, September or October. This is so important if you hope to have a good racehorse.
“Justify (Win-Star’s 3 year old that won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes to become a Triple Crown winner in 2018) is one of only a few Derby winners (and the first for about 30 years) that never ran as a two year old. Most racehorses really need that early competition – a few races under their belt – to be ready for the spring races their three-year-old year. You want to give them the opportunity to be the best they can be.
“I always sell my good horses; you have to sell your good ones if you are going to stay in the business. When I sell a young horse, the buyer can purchase that horse with confidence, and know that the horse has gone through a process of fitness conditioning and is ready to be broke, with a greater opportunity to stay sound and get to the races early.”
Fitness conditioning won’t show up in the veterinary exams for the sales and pre- purchase exams, but these youngsters will be sound. Casner’s yearlings are out at pasture most of the time, but he brings them in for a while during the day. “We start leaving them
in the barn during the day in June and just turn them out at night because of the heat and the sun. We don’t want their hair to bleach.” They get plenty of turnout from 6 p.m. until 8 a.m., and lots of time to self-exercise.
These yearlings are never in stalls all the time. “They need to be able to move around and have plenty of exercise,” says Casner. “You have to put all the pieces together and try to maximize their opportunity to become athletes. It’s like kids who start playing soccer when they are four years old; they may do other sports as they get older, but
if they start the physical adaptation process when they are young, they will be stronger and more athletic when they are older.
“Mother Nature will only adapt to
the stresses that are presented, aiming for efficiency – not doing any more than is needed in terms of building muscles, bone or cardiovascular function. If you stress those systems at an early age, the body has a much greater opportunity to adapt and maintain those adaptations. Kids who are athletes when they are young and build cardio capacity, maintain that capacity. The heart is one of the few muscles that will maintain fitness throughout your life. If you develop it when you are young and take time off for 10 years and then go back into training, the heart will come back very quickly to the previous level,” he explains.
“It is important to start exercise at an early age (whether humans or horses) when the body is more receptive to adaptation. Most people with large numbers of
horses don’t have fitness programs for
their yearlings, however, because of the economics. I have about 12 to 15 horses I prep every year, so it’s a smaller population and we can devote more time to each of them. As an industry, most racehorse people don’t start as early as we do; they start prepping yearlings in July by putting them on free walkers. Some people used to treadmill a lot of these yearlings, but that’s not done as much anymore.
“Some people start working them in round pens or do 30 to 40 days of swimming because that’s become more popular. Some yearlings are sent to a place like KESMARC (Kentucky Equine Sports Medicine And Rehabilitation Center) at Versailles, Kentucky. The owner, Kirsten Johnson, is probably one of the most progressive people in every aspect of rehabilitation and sales preparation. She is always on the cutting edge of new technology, and has the best vets coming to her barn. She does a lot
of work with show horses, sport horses
and racehorses, and has a well-rounded experience doing this.”
80 SPEEDHORSE, November 2019
EQUINE HEALTH