Читать книгу Beyond the Track - Anna Morgan Ford - Страница 17

A lot of money is at stake in the racing industry, and horses don’t earn their keep by standing around in the barn. While trainers of other breeds and in other disciplines allow young horses to fully mature before being ridden—many Warmbloods are not started under saddle until age three or four—many Thoroughbreds are started in training as early as October of their yearling year. (Note: all Thoroughbreds, no matter what month of the year they are born, are given a birth date of January 1, and so it goes without saying that foals born later in any given year are at a disadvantage.) Of course, not all racehorse trainers impose the same time frame and, as I mentioned in the section on prepping two-year-olds for sales, some do employ a slightly slower training process in order to minimize stress on their horses.