HEARTBREAK AT THE SALES

With some friends I bought a share in this lovely thoroughbred as a yearling, to bring on and sell as a two year old racehorse. This is called pinhooking. It's a gamble that the youngster you buy will increase in value to give you a profit when sold to go into training. Horses are usually only named right before they run for the first time, so his name was 'the Hard Spun colt' because his sire is Hard Spun.

My friends asked me to prepare him for his big day at the breeze-up sales, where he would be asked to gallop (breeze) as fast as he could for two furlongs. Horses that run fast sell better. While I was giving him a pep talk about how proud we would all be of him if he ran fast, he suddenly showed me an image of his mother and said -

Does she know this is happening to me? It absolutely broke me.

I was trying to prepare a 21-month-old horse for a new life in a racing yard and all he could think of was his mother, whose name is Asoorah.

Immediately I was ashamed of trying to motivate him with the pride of people he has never met.

Love is the only reason an animal makes an effort, but while the Hard Spun colt had experienced care, he had not been loved by anyone but his mother. He had no reason to try harder for us.

One of my main reasons for learning AC was to try to help young racehorses maximise their window of opportunity so that they have the best possible chance of being well cared for. But this has made me realise that until a horse is cared for by somebody with whom they share love, motivation is going to be hard to come by.

I still believe I can find a way to help these beautiful, sensitive animals, but will need to rethink my approach before trying again.

I pray that this beautiful boy bonds with his groom and finds a reason to run fast - or is quickly moved to a loving home where he can fulfil his potential away from the racetrack.

Hard Spun x Asoorah - may love find you