Basic Care & Costs (Daily duties, Financial responsibilities)

ALEX: Well, I think caring for horse on a daily basis has a lot of responsibilities. When Steve and I did it on the racetrack together, we’d start at 5:00 in the morning. That was a little different scenario than if you just had your horse at your house.

But obviously you need to check on your horse every day to make sure he’s in good health and there are no situations that happened the night before. He needs to be cared for, his stall has to be cleaned and he has to be groomed and fed. And some sort of exercise plan has to be established, if not on a daily basis, on a weekly or monthly basis.

What are you going to do with your horse? Horses thrive with exercise, and they need a job to do; they can’t just sit in your barn all day long and not have any type of exercise. So I think that’s the important thing about really deciding what you’re going to do with them — not just on a daily basis — but through a 30-day period.

STEVE: Conditioning, obviously, is paramount to whatever activity that you pick for your horse. If you take a horse that’s poorly conditioned or non-conditioned and you decide to go into a very aggressive sport, you increase the chances that they can have injuries and that you will not use them for an extended period of time while they are laying up, healing from these injuries.

So a good conditioning background program is essential in order to get the most out of your horse, so that they can be maintained and you can enjoy them for the particular discipline you’re using them for.