Day 1 – Phil’s Courage Journal

When I first met Phil he was absolutely stunning, a real eye catcher. I was in awe of his stature and magnificent beauty. My “awe” quickly was replaced with ”oh, no” as soon as the human element entered the picture. While Phil was magnificent in his world, he didn’t quite fit into the human world. Phil was pushy, mouthy, and did not know there were rules when interacting with humans. Phil was mentally unstable. Read more

Training OTTBs – Phil’s Courage’s Journal – From Ex-Race Horse to Sport Horse

 Insights to Retraining Thoroughbred Race Horses

Phil’s Courage was purchased as a Prospect Horse from the Bits & Bytes Farm Web site in 2007.

His first owner off-the-track was Christa Mooney of Charlotte, NC. Unfortunately, Christa had a family health issue and a lack of time to continue “Phil’s” off-the-track training. Christa loved Phil’s Courage very much and she did a good job of letting him down and getting him started as a sport horse. As time went on Christa had less and less time to work with Phil’s Courage and he started taking control.

He was fortunately purchased by Kara who has the experience to unschool some of the bad habits that “Phil” had picked up in his leisure time while Christa was busy caring for her son. I have asked Kara to give us a Journal of Phil’s Courage’s training. She uses common techniques promoted by most “Natural Horseman” trainers. It is our hope that our reader’s will see how these techniques work to make your horse respect you on the ground and when mounted. It is important to have patience and not rush through the process. Kara explains what she is doing and more importantly why. You can follow along and see the results. Enjoy and learn! Start at Ground Training – Day 1 Phil’s Courage under the Page listings.
Elizabeth Wood
Bits & Bytes Farm