Retraining that standardbred

Last fall we bought a pacing standardbred mare, Bunny, just off the track. This is my then, 14 year old daughter's project. This mare is so sweet, but was offish with her head. She would never look straight on at you. Her head was high and she paced.

My daughter mounted her after we worked with her to be sure she had the ground manners and then to be sure she would respond to bit. She is just the most gorgeous, proud moving animal and from the minute my daughter mounted her, they became one. Bunny is like a model on the runway!

We constantly work on getting her head down and she is beginning to supple, but it is a long process, because she was run with hobbles and the bars they use to keep the head up. Now we are asking the total opposite of her. Muscle changes have to happen and she just has to be allowed to walk, trot or canter as a horse should. To teach her to trot, we laid a ground pole where she would be asked to trot and also small circles would bring her out of the pace. She will now canter after the jump, but still goes into the pace. It all take time and patience. Right now she is just being a horse and I see her cantering and trotting on her own. In the spring we will work with her again and I think she will really be ready. She will make such a beautiful dressage horse the way she moves.

Let me hear your stories of retraining.

I may have posted this story before but anyway. I had an OTTB mare that had been trained in the hunter jumper/eventing area by her previous owner. I bought her (rather my husband did) as a trail horse. I spent 2 years teaching her not to jump over things but to step over them on the trail. She was a beautiful horse with great ground manners and did everything asked of her in the arena but was a squirrel on the trail. I ended up putting her up for sale and who should come to look at her but a trainer from an eventing school. She brought some jumps with her and I though "Oh no she won't jump them because I have taught her not to" Well after a few times around she came to the jump, hesitated for a split second with this look in her eye like "what am I suppose to do" then over she went. The lady was thrilled with her and bought her instantly.

My daughter jumps her standardbred and she will jump anything. The hardest part is ocassionally she paces into the jump. It doesn't work.. Wipeout! The pole goes flying, but I will guarantee you the next time she will trot. I think there is such a restructuring of the physical and the mental from racing. Our mare was 9 when we got her. Standardbreds are extreemly intelligent in my opinion.

We have a morgan cross from a trotter. This little thing as a baby would jump the high grass just to jump.. I also saw her jump our electric fence. They are born jumpers and so underrated for saddle horses. We are so in love with their temperment, attitude and willingness to please. I highly reccommend the breed, but better yet, the crosses are awesome!

thats funny! My stb loves to jump too and if there is a longer patch of grass or a darker patch of grass, he will jump it lol so funny cause half the time you arent expecting it hehehehe

Standardbreds have sure been under rated for their abilities. How old is you horse, princess, and what is it's background? I love to hear stories of retraining, etc.

my stb is the one in my new avatar, the other one was my tb :)

Cougar is 24 and did about 10 years of cross country before the people who got him before me. He was a confidence/school horse before me. He did race for four years and did reasonably well but was retired at age 8. Im not sure what he did between retiring and cross country but I can only assume it was retraining :)

I adopted Yankee Dusty, He was quite the racer and he won over 800 thousand dollars from trotting. He was unsaddled for years and actually had only ever been ridden in a western saddle a few times, though he wasnt trained, he just was calm enough to sit on.
I got him now when he was 12. I've adopted him in april and have had him since. When I got him, he could only trot, unbalanecd, and couldnt canter to save his life. He was so emacciated and weak he could barely walk around himself

Since then he's gained weight, he's 16.3 and is bay. He's been doing so well. I've managed to get him to canter, even full circles. He's still very quick at the canter though. If I focus I can even get him to collect his trot, it takes a looot of work and we stilll have so far to go. Im training him to be a jumper, he can jump 3 ft at the trot so far. I havent jumped him in his canter yet since its too fast, but he's come so far in sooo little time, that im so excited about how much potential he has.

Retraining him was an incredible project, and considering he;s the first horse I've ever owned, I feel so proud knowing that working together we were able to come so far. He'll be showing in spring

I know what you mean about that jumping!!! My standardbred will overjump anything and everything. He turns 3ft into 3ft 6 and 2ft 9 into the SAME. He loves jumping, he jumps his water trough when ppl arent looking! Hahahahaha

My STB mare liked to jump trotting poles!

I'm still trying to teach my standardbred to trot under saddle.

Yay! I love to hear stories of standardbreds getting second careers in loving homes. I have such love and admiration for these intelligent and loving horses - they have paid my mortgage and put food on the table for my family for many years. I'm not sure what states/provinces you all are from, but may I suggest that you investigate if you have a stbd adoption association. They can be a great resource, and can put you in touch with other stbd owners.
With regards to trying to get the horses head down, do lots of bending and lateral work. They also like it because it engages the mind and takes it off the "go fast!" button
OP - is your horse related to Precious Bunny? I just wondered because of the name Bunny...

Oh, and if anyone in Ontario is looking for a STBD trotter, I have one at the farm who is looking for a forever home - I;m pretty sure the owner will give him away for free!