How to Exercise a Thoroughbred Race Horse

By Janice L. Blake and Barbara D. Livingston

Janice L. Blake, Thoroughbred race horse jockey and author, describes how to take a horse to the race track and back safely.

This guide is great for beginners, owners, and other rail birds who want to know more about what goes on behind the scenes of a Thoroughbred race track as the horses are being exercised in the morning.

Follow along with Janice as she gets a leg-up on the race horse, rides to the track, exercises the horse, and brings it back to the barn unscathed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Nov 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781452580920

Janice L. Blake

Janice L. Blake is currently loving living near New York City and riding Thoroughbred race horses on the New York circuit of Aqueduct, Belmont, and Saratoga. She is married to hall of fame jockey Braulio Baeza and has a calico cat named Pumpkin. Janice began her riding career at the age of thirteen, working as a guide on a livery trail in Michiana Shores, Indiana. Following her passion for riding horses, she discovered barrel racing, eventing, dressage and, eventually, horse racing. Janice started exercising race horses for P. Noel Hickey in Chicago, Illinois and moved on to riding Thoroughbred sale horses for Eddie Woods in Ocala, Florida. At Tampa Bay Downs, Florida, she won her first race riding Friendly Goose, trained by Jason Stodgill. Riding Thoroughbred race horses has taken Janice all over the United States, to Brazil and sundry places in between. Visit her online at www.janicelblake.com or on facebook at How to Exercise a Thoroughbred Race Horse.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 Janice L. Blake.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, please return to the website and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-8091-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-8092-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013916172

Balboa Press rev. date: 10/29/2013

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to my niece, Shelby N. Blake, and other little girls and young women who just want to be with horses all day long.

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Belmont Pony Track, with Rudy

Acknowledgments

I am greatly appreciative of my husband, Braulio Baeza, Sr., for his generosity of spirit which allowed me to write this book. I could not have reached this goal without his magnanimous support. I am also deeply obliged to the incomparable photographer Barbara D. Livingston for taking time out of her schedule during the pre-Derby campaign to take the photos for this book.

9329.png Additionally, I am profoundly grateful to Thoroughbred owner and trainer Joseph A. You Have To Believe Lostritto for the use of his horses and equipment. His incisive wit and acerbic honesty goaded me into getting this book written.

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Michelle Bernard, for our indelible friendship. Andrea Chelemengos, for our late-morning discussions. Cousin Barbie Hauge, for her perspicacious edits and Colleen Litof for the extra polish. Mostly, I would like to thank my parents for dropping me off at the Stables and forgetting about me, so I could just be with horses all day long.

*If there is a word you do not fully understand, stop reading, get a dictionary and define the word before you read on. This will increase your understanding and appreciation of the material.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1   Getting Started

Chapter 2   At the Barn

Chapter 3   People on the Race Track

Chapter 4   Walking to the Track

Chapter 5   The Race Track

Chapter 6   The Gallop

Chapter 7   Back at the Barn

Chapter 8   Problems to Look For

Chapter 9   How the Horse Should Go

Chapter 10   Riding Pointers

Chapter 11   Draw Reins

Chapter 12   Becoming a Jockey

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Walking Home with Rudy

How to Exercise a Thoroughbred Race Horse

By Janice L. Blake

When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipes of Hermes.

~Wm. Shakespeare, Henry V, Act III, Scene VII

Introduction

This treatise is meant for a select group of people: beginning exercise riders, race horse owners who want to know what their horses are doing on the race track in the morning and other rail birds who would like more insiders’ knowledge of the Thoroughbred race horse. For everyone else who knows what is going on, I trust you will find this book interesting and entertaining.

Included in this manual are methods of solving problems with horses that have worked for me or that I have observed. This book covers the rudimentary elements of getting a horse safely to the race track and back. It is my genuine desire that people of all experience levels find it useful in maintaining a supreme partnership with our dear friend and mentor, the horse.

This book was intended for the instruction of my