Young Gippsland horsewoman Chloe McKay is one of the newest additions to the HERO Program’s Registered Retrainer ranks.
McKay, an executive committee member of the Yanakie Campdraft Association, has ridden since she was five and boasts vast experience working with young, green and off-the-track horses, but is new to standardbreds, having been introduced to the breed by a close friend.
She is undertaking the re-education of Hercules, an unraced New Zealand-bred son of Bettors Delight.
He was purchased for $52,000 at the 2014 New Zealand Premier Yearling Sale by clients of the Noel Alexander and Jayne Davies stable at Cranbourne but failed to live up to his impeccable bloodlines.
“He was just too slow,” Davies said. “He had quite a few preparations and was given every chance to make it as a racehorse, but he wasn’t fast enough.”
The Alexander/Davies team has a long and proud history of rehoming suitable horses for a new life under saddle.
The couple has built a particularly strong rapport with members of the Snake Island Cattlemen’s Association through a partnership spanning more than a decade.
Former smart youngster Avalon Castle is another of the stable’s team to go through the HERO Program in recent months.
“Hercules came to me about three weeks ago,” McKay said. “As soon as I stepped into the round yard to meet him for the first time he walked straight up to me and let me rub his head and pat him all over.
“Being such a young horse (three-year-old) I expected him to be a handful, but as it turns out he is a lot easier (to work with) than my 10-year-old, fully broken Quarab.
“To this day he has not put a foot wrong, not even the first time I mounted him. Even though he was anxious he still listened to me, respected me and did what I asked of him.”
McKay said before her involvement with the HERO Program she had not “thought much about goofy standies, but this boy has surely converted me and made me fall in love with the breed”.
“If anyone is considering joining the program as a retrainer I would say go for it,” she said. “It’s so rewarding working with this beautiful breed.”
For further information about the HERO Program and to become a Registered Standardbred Retrainer, please phone HERO Manager Tanya McDermott on 0407 413 156 or email hrvhero@gmail.com
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
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