Category: Welfare

By Abby Delucyk

From winning Off the Track series with her thoroughbred to establishing herself as a female trainer, racing is well and truly ingrained in Amanda Davis-William’s DNA. 

Leading the way for other females within the industry, Amanda is following in the footsteps of her mother, Tina Williams, who is a small Wyong based trainer by creating her own stable of winners. “Being a female and a small trainer in this industry is quite special as I get to prove that we are just as capable as men and are strong enough to do it without a man,” she said.

Davis’s passion for female inclusion in racing has been influenced by the strong females she is surrounded by. Such females include popular Wyong trainer, Kim Waugh, who Amanda is employed with full time as a Work Runner. “I really love working with Kim as she is always very good with giving advice and great to talk to. I really take in what she does and try to reflect it in my own training,” Amanda said.

Amanda’s love for horses was established from a young age as she says she was “born straight into a saddle and was sitting on a horse before she could walk.” This passion intensified when she participated in Pony Clubs up until she was 15. During this time, she became captivated by the beauty of the show ring which led to her venturing into the show world. Through finding her talent in this discipline, Amanda grew her competition team by collecting off the track Thoroughbreds who helped her secure ribbon after ribbon at competitions around NSW. “I loved how showing was something mum and I could do together,” Davis said.

Having the luxury of witnessing her mother become a racehorse trainer, Amanda made the decision to transition from the showring to the racetrack. “I always dreamt of becoming a trainer but was always happy and content just riding trackwork. This all changed when I got badly injured 4 years ago which forced me to think hard about what I wanted to do in the future. It gave me the push needed to become a trainer,” Amanda said.

“It is pretty good to have a mom as a trainer as it provides me with a lot more encouragement and I think being a daughter of a female trainer is very important in this sport. We are very competitive so I want to beat her in races, but I also know I can turn to her if I need help or guidance,” Davis said.

Typically, some people may feel the pressure associated with following in a family member’s footsteps in the same industry, but Amanda admits she’s never experienced this. “I never felt that pressure with mum but instead look to her for advice. The best thing she ever told me was, if you want to keep a level head in the racing game you need to be realistic with where you are at with your training and prep.”

With this advice in the back of Amanda’s mind she made the leap and applied for her trainer’s license, which she received within 5 months. Just 2 weeks later, Amanda had her first taste of success when her horse, G’day Poopsie, ran first at Wellington in March 2021. This horse has continued to provide Amanda with success after running first at Taree in January of this year.

Balancing this, Davis also doesn’t sugar-coat the life of a trainer and instead shines light on the challenges that trainers face. “I think a big challenge is owners coming and going. As a small trainer starting from the ground up, it can be hard to attract big owners and gain connections within the industry,” she says.

Despite being a full-time trainer, Amanda is still very much active in the equestrian world. Her proudest achievement was when she was crowned Off the Track series winner at the Thoroughbred Spring Fair in 2021 on her OTTB, Recife Beach, who was formally trained by Kim Waugh.  

As Amanda’s life revolves around racing, organisation has become a top priority as her race day prep looks a little different to others. “I always get ready the day before, so I get all the gear and equipment packed and make sure to iron the silks. I then check the horses but as I have to work in the stables in the morning, I have to make the call early before scratching’s. It’s so busy that I usually don’t have time to stress and instead trust that the horses are ready,” she says.

Amanda’s dream would be to train a city winner but for the mean time she narrows her sights on having a stable with more than 20 horses in work. “I am also huge on rehoming and would love to be able to help make sure that when her horses retire, they get a good life after racing,” Amanda concludes.

By Abby Delucyk

Moving ashore from Malmo, Sweden to Australia may have been a lifestyle change for apprentice jockey Julia Presits but her love for horses hasn’t wavered.

Ever since she was a young girl, Julia had an interest in horses and grew up riding equestrian by show jumping or eventing in her spare time.

With her love for horses established, Presits started riding in Sweden just for fun to help out a trainer and before she knew it, she had unlocked a passion.

After touching down in Australia, Presits debuted at the Gosford Picnics and started her Australian riding career with a bang by riding her first ever winner ‘Prospectors Helmet’ in the 1600m Class B handicap in November 2019.

“I have always loved horses and thought it would be fun to give it a go at the picnic races,” Presits said.

“It wasn’t until someone said that I was light enough to give riding professionally a go, that I really thought about it. The trainers at the picnics were joking that they needed a wheelbarrow when they picked up my saddles in the jockey room,” Presits said.

Although her riding career in Australia is recent Presits has previously had a successful riding career in Sweden, riding more than 80 race rides with 9 wins.  

Before her racing dreams took her internationally to the shores of Sydney, Julia also held a trainer’s license and trained 17 winners of both her own horses and her sisters.

“Naturally winning is the best part of being a jockey and one day I would love to ride like J Mac,” she said.

Now riding for Gary Portelli, Julia recognises that her favourite ride is when she won the benchmark 64 at Warwick Farm on Walkin’Talkin’ as this was her first metropolitan winner. Presits will look to continue her successful association with Walkin’Talkin’ tonight in Race 8 at Canterbury Park.

“I think the biggest challenge of being a jockey is getting a go and a chance to ride. It’s like any sport and if you don’t ride winners, it can become challenging.

“Someone once told me that it’s 87% about the horse in a race and only 13% the jockey which means if your horse is not good enough, it’s not always easy to win,” Julia mentions.

With previous experience of training back home in Sweden, Julia would like to resume training racehorses one day but not before she gives being a jockey a good shot.

“I want to be a jockey first before I become a trainer as I think you understand racing better if you ride first before training,” Julia said.

As her name is becoming recognisable, Julia sets her sights high with her goal to ride at Royal Randwick in the future.

By Abby Delucyk

With even the slightest knowledge about the racing industry, anyone would have heard of the apprentice jockey taking the world by storm, Anna Roper.

From riding six winners over three days to riding more winners in NSW than any other jockey at the start of 2022, this young jockey’s life has taken an unexpected turn.

“Ever since I can remember I have ridden horses, as my older sisters and Mum always rode so I learnt a lot from them,” Roper said.

“I got my first pony when I was four called ‘Willow’ and he was super naughty and always dropped me, but we learnt a lot together.”

From Mangrove Mountain Pony Club where Anna grew up riding, she went on to learn dressage for some time before moving to show riding where she competed in high-level competitions.

“I had an awesome horse called ‘FBI’ who was a superstar and I could do all disciplines with him.”

After some time in the saddle, Anna moved on from dressage to eventing where she found her calling. Her dedication to eventing led her to win the National Inter School Championships in 2019, the State Inter School Title, and the Australian Youth Dressage Championships in 2016.

It wasn’t until a good friend of Anna’s parents offered her a position to ride trackwork for Greg McFarlane at Gosford in the school holidays, that a 16-year-old Anna was introduced into the racing industry.

The school holidays turned into weekends and before she knew it, she was riding before and after school. The same progression happened with her riding.

“It started as a slow canter which then went into a fast gallop and then a jump out. I remember my first jump out on a retired thoroughbred called ‘Sweat ball’ which was very interesting,” Anna described.

With her dream to get into a Vet Science course at University, Anna decided to set aside riding for six months while she focused on completing her HSC. After this year was done, she returned to riding by starting trackwork for Tracey Bartley in Wyong in the hopes of making some extra cash for Uni.

“I always thought about becoming a jockey but just thought I was too heavy and would never make the weight as an apprentice. It was always a dream idea but nothing I thought seriously about.

“Tracey was the one that encouraged me to try it as I started to lose weight while trackwork riding so I gave it a go. It’s been pretty insane since then,” Roper said.

The door opened and before she knew it, Anna discovered her new talent.

She started to turn heads early in the 2022/23 season when she began her apprenticeship and on her initial race ride at Gundagai, she rode her first winner.

“The first couple days of this season has to be a highlight as they put me at the top of the jockey premiership – above J-Mac which was pretty awesome!”

With her success on the rise, Anna’s schedule is a lot more booked than the average 20-year-old by traveling across NSW to ride six days a week as well as getting up at 3am to work in the stables each day.

“Someone I look up to as a mentor is Rachel King as she is so professional and is doing really well as a female in the metropolitan region. She is also super helpful by being more than willing to watch a race replay with me.

“There aren’t that many things I dislike about being jockey because I love it so much. It’s become such a passion that it doesn’t feel like your normal work,” Roper said.

As Anna continues to ride winners, she sets her sights on being successful in the metropolitan region as an apprentice.

“I’ll see how long my body holds up while riding but it would be incredible to win an Everest or Melbourne Cup one day.”

By Pryde’s EasiFeed, written by Bethanie Clark BAnVetBioSc (Hons I)

When the seasons change, it is important that as horse owners we monitor changes in pasture quality and quantity and manage our horses feed appropriately.  As pasture availability increases in spring and summer, generally an automatic response of owners is to decrease the amount of hay and supplementary feed being fed. While this is the right response to manage a horse’s weight and body condition, ensuring horses are obtaining all the nutrients they require through the changes of season is not as simple as increasing or decreasing the amount of hay or feed in their diet. This article will cover how you can correctly adjust your horse’s diet through the changes of season without compromising on any nutrients they require.

Energy:

Dietary carbohydrates are the major source of energy within horse’s diets, providing majority of the fuel for everyday maintenance and functioning of the body, as well as the fuel required for exercise. When the amount and quality of pasture increases in seasons of high rainfall, the amount of energy that horses are able obtain from pasture alone increases drastically and can be enough to sustain a lactating mare, a growing horse, or a high-level performance horse; let alone a horse at maintenance or in light work. Due to this, it is not uncommon to see horses begin to put on excess weight or exhibit hot and fizzy behaviour when ridden. If this is the case for your horse, reducing and managing digestible energy intake will be necessary. While decreasing energy intake can be as simple as reducing or removing supplementary feed when more pasture is available, it is not as simple as this when it comes to ensuring the correct essential amino acid (through protein), mineral and vitamin intake.

Protein:

Protein is a major component of most tissues within the body, second only to water. A horse at maintenance on good quality pasture will likely obtain enough protein in their diet from pasture alone. While a lactating mare or high-performance horse with higher requirements of protein, specifically essential amino acids such as lysine, are likely to not obtain this from good quality pasture alone. While pasture may provide enough energy to maintain weight, lactation, and energy for performance without the provision of supplementary feed, essential amino acid intake may be lacking.

Vitamins and Minerals:

While vitamins and minerals comprise only a minor part of the diet by weight, they play a major role in the overall health of horses. When pasture is abundant and supplementary feed is reduced or removed, in almost every case a deficiency of minerals will appear. In Australia the most common minerals lacking in pasture are copper, zinc and iodine and these deficiencies will arise even for horses at maintenance. For horses with higher requirements of minerals and vitamins such as lactating mares, growing horses and horses in work often calcium, phosphorus, selenium, and vitamin B1 will also be deficient.

Balancing energy intake while ensuring adequate nutrient intake

Quality supplementary ‘full’ feeds are fortified with essential amino acids, minerals, and vitamins and when fed at the recommended feeding rates, each of these requirements are often met. In dry periods when horses are on poor pasture often supplementary feed needs to be fed to meet digestible energy requirements. For example, here is a diet of a horse in moderate work, who through a dry period was on low quality pasture, supplemented with lucerne hay and 3.2kg of EasiResponse. The 3.2kg of EasiResponse is required to meet the energy requirements for performance, that is not being provided by pasture and is also working to meet vitamin and mineral requirements.

When pasture quality improves, if the same amount of hay and supplementary feed is provided this will result in excessive weight gain and likely too much energy when ridden. In response to an increased amount of pasture hay can be removed and the amount of EasiResponse decreased to 1kg. While this effectively reduces digestible energy intake, it leaves the diet deficient in copper, selenium, and iodine.

While the amount of EasiResponse could be increased to meet these requirements, the use of Pryde’s Sliding Scale is an ideal option. The Pryde’s Balancer Range is designed specifically to meet horses’ requirements through the changing of seasons. For the horse in moderate work, as the amount of a full feed such as the EasiResponse is reduced due to increased pasture availability, a balancer pellet can be introduced to fill the nutrient gaps that this creates. Here’s the same diet, with 500g of the Essentials 150 introduced.

The introduction of the Essentials 150, ensures that the minerals that were deficient are now being met, notice also that the use of this doesn’t increase digestible energy intake. In the case where pasture quality improves further, the EasiResponse could be completely removed, and the Essentials 150 used alone. Below is an example of how the two can work together to moderate energy intake with changing pasture quality, while meeting all nutrient requirements, for a 500kg horse in moderate work:

Pasture Quality	Poor	Average	Good	Excellent
EasiResponse	3.5kg	2.5kg	1kg	0kg
Essentials 150	0kg	0kg	0.5kg	0.8kg

To take the guess work of balancing energy intake with vitamin and mineral intake, each of the Pryde’s full feeds have a ‘Keep it Balanced’ section, which can be found on the back of the bags or on the website. This provides you with the recommended amount of a balancer pellet to add into your horse’s diet for every 1kg under the recommended feeding rate being fed. There are a range of balancer pellets available, depending on your horse’s individual requirements.

While it may seem overwhelming at first to ensure your horse is obtaining all their nutrient requirements while moderating their energy intake especially when there is abundant pasture; the range of Pryde’s products are carefully formulated to ensure these requirements are met to give you peace of mind and to take the guess work out of feeding. If you would like to know more about how the Pryde’s products work together to promote optimal health and performance in your horse, please get in contact or use our free feed selector.

By Pryde’s EasiFeed, written by Bethanie Clark BAnVetBioSc (Hons I)

Thoroughbreds transitioning from racing to other disciplines including eventing, show jumping, dressage, showing, and pony club is becoming more common, providing these young horses a change of career and home. Rehoming and retraining an off the track thoroughbred is certainly not without its challenges but has the opportunity for great reward with patience and time. Transitioning from racing to performance, pleasure or being a paddock mate involves several major changes, one of those being their diet. In this article we hope to give you some tips on transitioning and feeding your off the track Thoroughbred.

While feeding an off the track thoroughbred is similar to feeding any other horse, they do have some specific requirements, considering the diet that they have come from, which will be outlined below.

Base their diet on plenty of forage: While this is the number one requirement of any horse, it is particularly important for the off the track thoroughbred. When they arrive at their new home, having access to plenty of pasture is ideal, if this is not the case providing at least 2% of their body weight per day in forage sources such as a combination of pasture, lucerne and grassy hay is recommended.  It is important to remember that in vast majority of cases these horses have come from a high grain (average of 7kg/day), low forage/fibre diet. As is becoming more well known, high grain, high volume diets with low amounts of forage/fibre have negative effects on hindgut health, likely resulting in poor fibre fermentation and digestion of forage sources, lack of production of B vitamins and biotin and a poor appetite. So, ensuring a high forage and fibre intake of a variety of sources will assist in restoring a healthy balance of the microbial population of their hindgut.  It is important to note that this will be a gradual process and will require patience and the implementation of other management strategies to promote hindgut health. This high grain, low forage diet in combination with exercise also puts racehorses at higher risk of Equine Squamous Gastric Disease (ESGD), so it is possible that your off the track does have some degree of ulceration. Feeding a high forage diet, particularly of long-stem forage, promotes chewing, saliva production and buffering of gastric acid, which will help to minimise the worsening of ulcers. However, studies have shown that ulcers are unlikely to completely resolve on their own, so if deemed necessary, getting a gastroscope conducted and putting them on appropriate omeprazole treatment is recommended. Treatment of ulcers is likely to also assist with improving appetite and overall wellbeing.

Supplement their diet appropriately: with so many options it is often difficult to decide what to feed an off the track thoroughbred. While there are many variables to consider, one of utmost importance is choosing a feed that will promote hindgut health. While it can be tempting, particularly if the horse is underweight, to feed high amounts of grain-based products, in an attempt to put condition on quickly, this is not going to be beneficial for re-establishing the microbial population of their hindgut. Instead, basing their diet on fibre and forage, as discussed above, and providing supplementary feed around this is going to be more beneficial long term. If they are an adequate weight upon arrival or have been maintaining their weight on forage, a vitamin and mineral balancer pellet can be added to their diet to ensure their vitamin and mineral requirements are met without increasing their digestible energy intake. If they are needing to gain weight or are not maintaining weight well on forage alone, a low starch and sugar, high fibre, full feed can be added into their diet. This will provide a higher amount of digestible energy in their diet and help to promote weight gain without compromising the re-establishment of fibre fermenting bacteria in their hindgut. The provision of a fortified or full feed, that contains vitamins and minerals will ensure that their vitamin and mineral requirements are also met, if the feed is fed at the recommended feeding rate.

Consider the addition of biotin: Often off the track thoroughbreds have weak and brittle hooves, likely the result of poor hindgut health and subsequent lack of production and absorption of B vitamins. As the microbial population of their hindgut re-establishes, the production and absorption of B vitamins will improve. While this process occurs, they may benefit from supplementation with biotin to help improve hoof quality. An effective dose of biotin is 20mg per day for a 500kg horse, so it is important to look for a product that will provide this amount. Ensuring a balanced diet, with all vitamin and mineral requirements met, will also help to promote hoof quality and growth.

Monitor their feed intake: It is important to continue to monitor their feed intake and ensure they are consuming their feed and are given the opportunity to consume their feed. Off the track thoroughbreds can be fussy eaters, so it is important to check that they are eating what you are providing to them. If they are fussy with their feed or stop eating it, the first step is to remove any additional supplements or salt from their feed, if they have been added, until they start eating again and they can be slowly re-introduced. Allowing them access to pasture, restoring hindgut function and treatment of gastric ulcers will also assist with re-gaining appetite over time. If they are in a paddock with other horses, it is also important to note where they are in the pecking order and if they have the opportunity to eat all of their feed. Having lived the last couple of years probably housed on their own, they tend to get used to being able to leave feed and come back to it as they please, so it may take them some time to adjust to feeding behaviours when housed with other horses, so it is important to give them time to adjust. If they are struggling with maintaining weight and not able to eat their feed, it would be worth separating them at mealtimes.

Feeding for beginning work and re-training: Often the concern with feeding off the track thoroughbreds is their feed providing them with too much energy when they begin ridden work again. This can be experienced if high amounts of feed are being provided to help with weight gain or even maintenance. Having their diets predominantly based on forage and appropriate supplementary feed that is fibre based, as recommended above, is also a helpful way to promote calm behaviour as they begin ridden work and re-training. As they get further along in their training and education, their diets can be adjusted to accommodate changes in their requirements.

Example diets for off the track thoroughbreds suitable for paddock rest and the introduction of light work:

Weight Maintenance for a 500kg horse:

• Constant access to pasture or ad lib access to good quality grass hay
• 2-4kg good quality lucerne hay
• 500g EasiKeeper
  • Which provides 20.3mg of biotin
• Constant access to salt lick and clean, fresh water

Weight Gain for a 500kg horse:

• Constant access to pasture or ad lib access to good quality grass hay
• 3-5kg good quality lucerne hay
• 2kg Easi Off-The-Track
  • Which provides 20.8mg of biotin and a yeast prebiotic
• Constant access to salt lick and clean, fresh water