Olympic Ex-racehorse

Now here's a great advertisement for ex-racehorses ! Summon Up Theblood, a triple winner on the Flat for trainer Mick Channon in 2008, is now competing as an Olympian three-day-eventer at Rio de Janeiro. How's that for rehabilitation of racehorses?

Rather surprisingly, this good-looking bay by Red Ransom was not a long-distance Nantional Hunt horse (the type that often does so well when retrained for a sport like eventing), but a flat miler, winning at Windsor, Ayr and Thirsk. Clearly, some time after that someone taught him to jump! It just goes to show that 'even ' Flat ex-racehorses can learn to jump – and be somewhat better than average. (In fact, they can progress better in this respect than some highly experienced National Hunt horses. A retraining Flat racer will be learning jumping from scratch, and will only know to do what you teach him. But an old hurdler or chaser will have developed his own way of doing things, to meet obstacles at speed – along with, perhaps, some related physical stresses and injuries – which may not be suitable to the new sporting discipline, and will need to be un-learnt . Not always easy!

Summon Up Theblood, now 11 years old and owned by Louisa Benger, started his eventing career via Rehabilitation of Racehorses (ROR) classes. He obviously showed promise, and Brazilian event rider Carlos Parro – his Olympic Games partner in Rio - started riding SUT in open competitions in 2011.

They qualified for the Brazilian Olympic team at Barbary International Horse Trials in July, where they put in a tremendous last run to confirm their place on the squad.

Understandably thrilled at their Olympic prospects, Parro says: “It is very exciting for me to be representing Brazil at a home Games and it's also an achievement for a former racehorse to be competing at this level, showing how versatile and talented they can be in other disciplines.”

Of course, many ex-racehorses retrain very successfully for eventing, where their speed, stamina, agility and endurance serve them so well. We all remember Bindaree, the Grand National winner who went on to score at eventing too, as well as horses like Squadron Leader, Five Boys, and the wonderfully-named Cecily Parsley. But I don't personally know of any ex-racers who went on to compete in the Olympics. Are there any? Or is Summon Up Theblood starting a happy trend...