Track to Trail Thoroughbreds- rehab, rehoming, and rescue of ex-racehorses

Track to Trail Thoroughbreds-  rehab, rehoming, and rescue of ex-racehorses Rehabilitation, rehoming, and retirement of Off Track Thoroughbred Horses The bulk of what we do is provide care and medical treatment.

We rehabilitate injured ex racehorses OTTBs (Off Track Thoroughbreds) These horses may come from the track- mainly Gulfstream Race Track, but also owner surrender or seized by authorities. Horses may be available for adoption once they have healed. Education and Outreach also play a big part in what we do. We have a strong volunteer program. Check our our website for a full list of what we do and our available horses. VISITS FOR ADOPTIONS, CLASSES AND VOLUNTEERING ARE APPT ONLY

Flash back- LuJean and a student who loved him šŸ’•Many of us learn that horses can bring light to a place of darknessWarho...
06/30/2025

Flash back-
LuJean and a student who loved him šŸ’•

Many of us learn that horses can bring light to a place of darkness

Warhorse LuJean

It’s true, you don’t just rescue the horse. The horse rescues you …

Adopted horse Booker getting some love from his new farrier! He moved to Indiana this spring and is doing just so wonder...
06/30/2025

Adopted horse Booker getting some love from his new farrier!

He moved to Indiana this spring and is doing just so wonderful! We have great horses if you are looking for ownership.

Both Teddy and Typhoon are ready to go, located in local foster homes right here in Naples!

In other news, hay arrives today, a slew of volunteers, and more rain! July 4th weekend looks to be very wet. I won’t lie, I’m happy if they can’t be set off next door!

We have our next hoof trim schedule coming in 2 weeks. Please reach out to sponsor a trim! $50 each via Venmo tracktotrailthoroughbreds to help a horse!

Clay
Chevy
Wiley
Typhoon
Stevie
Cypress

This is the hardest time of the year w their feet w the 6 months of rain!

I feel inspired every day by the volunteers who come out to help the horses. Truly. Hard-working, generous with time and...
06/29/2025

I feel inspired every day by the volunteers who come out to help the horses.

Truly.

Hard-working, generous with time and resources, and very determined to make a better life for these amazing horses

Join us for orientation on Monday July 7th. Application on our website under the Volunteer tab.

Thank you to Volunteer Chandra who has covered three feeding shifts in a row this week!She did Friday night, Saturday ni...
06/22/2025

Thank you to Volunteer Chandra who has covered three feeding shifts in a row this week!

She did Friday night, Saturday night and is coming tonight as well as bringing by a brand new 100 gallon water tank for the area where chevy and clay live

Last week it was a gallon of fly spray

She’s a long term volunteer and supporter of these beautiful horses, and our mission to help ex-racehorses

We applaud her commitment. It’s a long drive for her and shes got a crazy busy schedule but time and again shes here when they need her!

If you would like to join her and our other Amazing crew of volunteers, we have an orientation the first Monday of every month. It’s always on a Monday at 2:30. For July its July 7th

There’s an application on our website and we would love to have you.!

We are the only horse rescue in Collier County

In particular ļæ¼ we are in Golden Gate Estates, which is Naples Florida. That’s the west side of the state almost all the way down to the bottom lol

Are you colicing? I’m colicing!How is your knee feeling? Mine’s a little achy today. It was not so bad yesterday and it ...
06/22/2025

Are you colicing? I’m colicing!

How is your knee feeling? Mine’s a little achy today. It was not so bad yesterday and it might be better tomorrow but for sure it’s not always 100%.

What about your hip? Do you have any back pain? Is it apparent to people around you or do you look pretty good actually?

Are you upfront when you’re in pain or do you brush it off and say oh no I’m fine

Horses and humans are decidedly different.

But…

We share so many traits. One might be masking or hiding symptoms from people around us. Another is how we feel today. This does not necessarily mean that that’s how we’re going to feel tomorrow. We can look pretty normal to the average person, we can boost our spirits and put on a fake smile Hide how we really feel

I think personally when we have injuries or illness, that makes us a lot more empathetic to our Horse companions.

I hope to have the article finished in a couple days but in the meanwhile, have you had some sort of illness or surgery or pain that has helped you empathize with your horse? Some days are not so awful snd other days you just cant?

Sometimes those things can make you simply fatigued or lose your appetite or not sleep well. Brain fog can be a big thing for us. Is it for them?

Picture of Moon over Victoria we picked up by Track to Trail Thoroughbreds- rehab, rehoming, and rescue of ex-racehorses in 2024. How do you think she’s feeling?

Shows!  Do you show?   Is it rewarding, stressful or something else?  I have found the most important thing for us, is a...
06/21/2025

Shows! Do you show? Is it rewarding, stressful or something else?

I have found the most important thing for us, is a supportive atmosphere. Where competitors are encouraging to each other

What’s your experience?

Wiley and I in Ocala many years ago at the old Lynn Palm place. It was wonderful! Like 100 quarter horses and 1 Ottb- us!

Star fruit, one pf the horses favorite treats.  It’s about half way thru its growth cycle!   We slice them up and dole t...
06/17/2025

Star fruit, one pf the horses favorite treats. It’s about half way thru its growth cycle! We slice them up and dole them out. The horses really enjoy this tart treat! Mangos should be ready soon too.

Track to Trail Thoroughbreds- rehab, rehoming, and rescue of ex-racehorses is in Naples FL.

Volunteer, classes, adoptions

Huge shout out to Jodi and Joe for prepping us for hurricane season!   Today was day 2 of leveling, grading, trimming up...
06/17/2025

Huge shout out to Jodi and Joe for prepping us for hurricane season! Today was day 2 of leveling, grading, trimming up trees and brush and so much more! I dont even really now how to express how grateful we are for the help

During Irma we had trees down blocking entry to the property, gates torn, fences down, feed and hay shed demolished and barn roof destroyed when a pine tree fell on it. Every year we learn more how to better prepare

We also got a propane generator at the end of last year from Karen and Poppy. We can run longer and not get caught up when there is a run on gasoline w 3 hour wait lines or worse, no gas at all.

Kids these days šŸ’•Hard working. Full of empathy.  Putting the horse first. Proud of all of our students, volunteers and s...
06/16/2025

Kids these days šŸ’•

Hard working. Full of empathy. Putting the horse first. Proud of all of our students, volunteers and supporters that help w our mission to heal injured ex racehorses

These people are the future of equine welfare, advocating on behalf of the Thoroughbred Racehorse.

Join us! Next orientation is in 2 weeks! We have kids classes going on thru the summer w a week long camp starting July 11th info on our webpage!

Track to Trail Thoroughbreds- rehab, rehoming, and rescue of ex-racehorses

Thank you, Sue for the hundred dollar credit at Sutherland General Store. That gets us that much closer to our goal of $...
06/15/2025

Thank you, Sue for the hundred dollar credit at Sutherland General Store. That gets us that much closer to our goal of $500 to Feed for the month. She send this every month to help feed her favorite horse here, Cypress!

Thank you, Chandra, our regular Volunteer who came over with a bag of grain and ordered us a gallon of fly spray So awesome!

Thank you to Patti for sponsoring part of Wileys float with the vet on Monday. We need about $50 more to cover him personally plus his half of the travel fee.

It’s with the help of generous people, no matter how big or how small that we’re able to continue doing what we do

This picture is Cypress, taken by one of our students yesterday. He was in a stall under a fan getting a cool down and very happy about it.

His float is also Monday and also sponsored by Sue FšŸ’•

Yes and yes- love the book and the links she provides as well. Great info and great page to follow!
06/14/2025

Yes and yes- love the book and the links she provides as well. Great info and great page to follow!

The call is coming from inside the house 🐓

I wrote this just before the Olympics last year but it is just as relevant now.

I’ve had a lot of conversations with my friends over the last week, not about ā€œthe videoā€ as such because we didn’t find it particularly shocking, more about the reaction to it and the state of the horse industry as a whole.

I’ll tell you why I didn’t find ā€œthe videoā€ shocking, someone in elite equestrian sport is using harsh, unethical training methods? Well yeh, and the sky is blue…. I’m so uncomfortable with the stuff that happens in the public eye, that many, including the governing bodies, seem to be okay with, that the video just fit right in with that for me. Also anyone who has worked with these horses, at that level, knows what goes on behind the scenes. It is common knowledge. To condemn one person and continue to praise and cheer on others who are known to be just as bad is tiresome, it’s just theatre.

This isn’t a case of one bad apple, and we get rid of them and everything is fine. When you have a sport that involves an animal unable to consent and a judging system that rewards compliance above all else, that could’ve been any rider, in any yard, anywhere. I don’t really care who it is, the system is sick from the top down and the bottom up.

We are sold this fairytale of partnership and horses who just love their jobs so much, all smiles and big pats and feel-good stories. Brush aside anything that doesn’t fit the narrative, we’re really good at doing this as humans. We don’t want to acknowledge uncomfortable truths so our brain tries to protect us. But if we can start to acknowledge that we have all been indoctrinated and conditioned to some degree, maybe, just maybe, we can allow ourselves to sit with that discomfort a little bit and really look at what we’re doing.

Equine behavioural science is really inconvenient when it doesn’t match up with the story we want to be true. Instead of making real change there is a lot of welfare-washing going on and we eat it up because it makes us feel good. Don’t worry about those blue tongues or that blood, look at this woman kissing her horse on the nose after she falls off! That’s true horsemanship right there!

We need to move away from the idea that abuse is just whips and blood. I have seen several professionals condemning ā€œthe videoā€ while their own pages are filled with videos causing extremely high-stress with flags or schooling their over-bent, atrophied horses in tight flash nosebands. But these people genuinely think what they’re doing is kind and good horsemanship, we’re really good at telling ourselves these stories. This isn’t about evil people secretly getting a kick out of harming horses, this is a systemic issue within the industry.

Where is your line? We seem to look at tools and equipment as our measure rather than what the horse is actually experiencing. We will condemn someone lashing a horse with a lunge whip but we’re fine with someone frightening a horse with a plastic bag on a stick in the name of training because they tell stories that make us feel good? Or the kids at the local clear round being encouraged to ā€œpony-club kickā€, growl and slap their ponies down the neck and calling it great, effective riding? Or the ā€œproblem-horseā€ trainers who ā€œsave horses livesā€ by continuing to get on them while they show extremely high-stress until they just give in and get used to it, but its kind because they pat them the whole time?

How often do we hear ā€œyou can’t make a horse do anything he doesn’t want to doā€ and yet most of the training industry is selling you methods to get your horse to do stuff he doesn’t want to do. We have been indoctrinated into a world where high-stress behaviour is normalised, horses are kept in inappropriate environments and we are setting them and ourselves up to fail.

We cannot expect people to be reliable advocates for the horse when their whole career and identity is wrapped up in getting horses to do stuff. Its a really tricky road to navigate and I would be much better off financially if I just dropped my ethics and behavioural knowledge and went back to ā€œgetting horses to do the thingā€. Its so easy to spin yourself a justifiable narrative, I used to do it all the time.

This isn’t about ā€œus and themā€, this is about them, and me, and you, and if we can sit with the uncomfortable realisation that we have all been indoctrinated and somewhat conditioned to accept and justify poor treatment of horses because its convenient, we can all do our part to create a better world for our horses. I can’t force anyone to change their mind, but if you’re still reading this and you’ve found yourself even slightly questioning things, I encourage you to sit with those thoughts and do some further reading. 🐓

A book I think everyone involved with horses should read is ā€œLanguage Signs and Calming Signals of Horsesā€ by Rachael Draaisma.

If you’d like to read more about the welfare issues within elite-level horse sport check out the book ā€œI Can’t Watch Anymoreā€ by Julie Taylor.

The following pages are also sharing plenty of information during the Olympics and beyond EPONA.tv and Milestone Equestrian

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk

www.patreon.com/lshorsemanship

Pictured is my horse of 20 years Lenny enjoy some scratches, he brings me joy just by existing 🄰

Happening now- Red are lightning strikes within the last 15 minutes yellow within the last 30. This is most every day fo...
06/12/2025

Happening now- Red are lightning strikes within the last 15 minutes yellow within the last 30. This is most every day for our six month rain season.

Florida is lightning capital of the country

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Naples, FL

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