The fifth installment in the 2025 OwnerView webinar series was held July 1 and covered the development of young Thoroughbreds.
The conference was hosted by The Jockey Club and the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and presented by Bessemer Trust, Keeneland, and Stoll Keenon Ogden. The panel was sponsored by OCD Pellets.
A Q&A was sponsored by West Point Thoroughbreds, and attendees were able to ask questions through a Q&A link.
Gary Falter, project manager for OwnerView, moderated the panel with guests Niall Brennan, owner of Niall Brennan Stables; David O'Farrell, manager of Ocala Stud; Lindsay Schultz, trainer; and Eddie Woods, owner of Eddie Woods Stable.
The conference covered all aspects of starting young horses, from foaling until they make it to the racetrack.
According to O'Farrell, it's important to start working with foals as soon as possible if they are nursing and healthy. "You know they would follow their mother if you let them and they'd lead right into the stall. But it's hugely important that you go ahead and put the mini halter, the figure eight halter, on and coax them down the shed row and teach them to lead right off the bat," he said.
The panelists agreed that starting horses should be done slowly and quietly. "The slower you go, the better it is. If you get into a rush, it ends up a mess," Woods said.
Brennan concurred. "If you go a little too quickly with it and frighten them, then that's a different story. We just take our time, and similar to Eddie, we spend about a week in the stall with the riders just playing with them, putting the tack on them, turning them around, and just judging them individually."
Another theme was starting and working horses together. "We send them out in groups, especially for the first while that they're at the track. And if we don't have a group then you might send them out with a pony," Schultz said. "The first part of the process, they always go in company."
The replay of Tuesday's Thoroughbred Owner Conference panel is available in the OwnerView archive.
Five additional Thoroughbred Owner Conference virtual panels are scheduled for 2025. The next session, "Buying at the Sales and Digital Sales," will be held Aug. 12 at 2 p.m. ET. A full schedule can be found here.
There is no registration fee for the virtual conference series, but registration is required. For more information about the owner conference series, including the schedule and registration page, please visit ownerview.com/event/conference or contact Gary Falter at 859.224.2803 or gfalter@jockeyclub.com.
This press release has been edited for content and style by BloodHorse Staff.
