by Cynthia McFarland

When you are looking for a racehorse, you are seeking an athlete. While this is obvious at two-year-olds in training sales where buyers can actually watch the juveniles in workouts, finding that athlete becomes more challenging at the yearling sales. Here, it is all about potential.

Trainers, agents, pinhookers, and owners spend long hours studying sales catalogs and inspecting individual horses prior to the sale. Final decisions often come down to those few minutes of evaluation as young horses are asked to walk, stand, and show themselves.

Getting a sales yearling to that point takes time, effort, and knowledge. To find out how it is done by some of the industry's best, we spoke with John Hall, yearling manager for Taylor Made Sales.

Taylor Made has evolved into one of the world's leading breeding farms and sales agencies. In 2007, Taylor Made offered 729 yearlings for sale at public auction and sold 536 for receipts of $73,700,000. That year, they led all consignors in yearlings offered, yearlings sold, and total sales.

With lifelong backgrounds in the horse business, the Taylor brothersÑDuncan, Mark, Frank, and BenÑhave built Taylor Made Sales into a formidable and diversified Thoroughbred enterprise. Since 1986, the brothers have solely owned the 1,600-acre Nicholasville, Kentucky-based farm that was founded by their father, Joe Taylor.

Break into groups

Hall has been caring for yearlings at Taylor Made for the past 12 years. This year, Taylor Made will sales prep about 260 yearlings on the farm, although they will consign an additional 500 or so. Each spring as May rolls around, Hall uses the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) as a point of reference to sort and separate yearlings according to the sales for which they are targeted.

"By Derby day, we've pretty much determined who's going to which sale, and we'll divide them into different groups as far as which sale they're going to," Hall said.

Colts tend to be rougher on each other than fillies and are separated into small individual paddocks.

"You'd like to keep them together, but the market demands that they get to the sale without bumps and bites on them," Hall said. "Fillies stay in small compatible groups of eight to ten or so. Once in a while you get an aggressive filly and will have to put her by herself, but that's very unusual."

Around May 1, July sale yearlings will begin staying in barns, and by the first of June all sale yearlings are kept up in stalls from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. to avoid sunburn on white markings and sun bleaching of coats.

Yearlings are turned out at night—fillies in their small groups and colts in their own separate paddocks. This stall time and night turnout routine continues right up until the yearlings ship out to their respective sales.

"The July horses we get a jump on, but we're not in as much of a hurry to get the September horses going, other than getting them out of the sun and working on them every day," Hall said.

Tail chewing is a concern for horses that are in groups. To discourage this, a mixture of three parts baby oil and one part Raplast (a product to keep horses from chewing bandages) is sprayed on the bottom third of every horse's tail twice a week or so. Mixing the Raplast with baby oil seems to makes it last longer than using the product alone.

"It's a constant hassle to keep them from chewing tails, and it's something we try to guard against," Hall said. "If they're anxious, they will chew on tails. Once they start, they can take the tail off a horse in one night, and you don't have time to grow one out by the sale."

Feed and grooming

Until sales prep begins, yearlings typically have been outside 20 to 21 hours a day. Horses that tend to get fat will be placed in stalls a bit more to keep them from gorging on grass and putting on excessive weight. This kind of horse may need to start on an exercise program sooner than most yearlings.

Around May 1, sale yearlings are put on a 15% protein feed that contains a good amount of beet pulp. Every horse also gets corn oil in its feed, the supplement Chondrogen EQ, and MSM (methylsulfonylmethane) to relieve any minor inflammation. Unless a yearling tends to be fat or has a particularly thick neck, it also is given a rice bran oil product called M.A.S.S (multi-active strengthening system). The product naturally builds muscle, improves hair coat, and tends to have a calming effect. Hay is a combination of orchard grass and alfalfa.

Every yearling is carefully evaluated to see if any special additional feed supplements are needed for that individual horse, Hall said.

Generally speaking, each groom at Taylor Made is responsible for ten horses, but this number is cut to just five horses for sales prep because the groom will spend a good amount of time with each of his or her yearlings.

"Once they're up all day, you can do more intense grooming," Hall said. "I like to have a curry comb on them every day; we do a lot of currying."

To keep from pulling out too much hair, grooms use stiff brushes instead of combs on tails. Any knots are taken out by hand. When sales prep begins, manes are pulled just enough to level them off; they will be pulled shorter and touched up just prior to the sale.

"You don't want the mane any shorter than the length of a dollar bill. If you get the mane too short or too thin early, it won't lie well," Hall said. "We train the mane to lie on the right side so everything is as uniform as possible. We'll braid manes, if needed, to train them to lie on the right side."

Rather than rubber bands, yarn is used for braiding so that it does not cut the hair. Braids are not left in longer than four days at a time.

Yearlings are introduced to clippers, but the final close trim of ears, muzzle, and fetlocks will not be done until just before the sale. The bridle path (the clipped area behind the ears where the halter strap or bridle rests) should be fairly short and is trimmed just two fingers' length from the horse's poll.

During their grooming and handling sessions, yearlings also get accustomed to wearing a chifney bit.

Good hoof care is an important part of sales prep, and proper trimming is essential, Hall said. "Bobby Langley is our horseshoer, and he's a master. He really puts a lot of effort in these horses as far as making sure we have them as correct as we possibly can. Occasionally, a yearling needs shoeing, but usually we keep everything barefoot and only put shoes on about four or five days before leaving for the sale. We'd rather have a nice, clean bare foot and not have the nail holes."

Hooves, including the entire sole, are painted daily with commercial hoof oil, and for yearlings whose feet need extra attention, Hall uses a product called Contender.

Exercise plan

Buyers are looking for a fit horse and not just a pretty, well-bred yearling. "The market demands more all the time," Hall said. "They're looking for a horse that is more conditioned, but you have to be careful not to do too much too quick with them because they're babies. You can't do more than they're ready to do. Generally speaking, fillies are tougher to prep than colts because they're more laid back and don't exercise and play on their own as much as colts do."

At the start of sales prepping, each horse's condition is evaluated and an exercise plan is determined for each one. Taylor Made has several different methods for exercising horses. Most yearlings are conditioned in freestyle automatic walkers, spending up to 30 minutes a day, six days a week, walking and jogging.

"We swim a few horses if we have a tough time getting them fit-looking because this seems to be very beneficial," said Hall, noting that horses are taken to Kentucky Equine Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Center in Versailles, Kentucky, to swim.

"If we feel a horse isn't developing his hind end as much as we want to see, we'll pony him up and down hills or put him on a treadmill," Hall said. "Every horse is hand-walked a couple of days a week for 15 to 20 minutes. You really want to get a horse walking well. You want them to be in shape, but nothing sells a horse like a good loose walk. You don't want to be constantly prodding a horse on."

The horse should walk on a loose lead beside the handler's shoulder, not dragging behind or leaning into the handler. A horse that lags behind or leans on his handler will lose points with potential buyers, so learning to walk out briskly and confidently is a huge part of the yearlings' lessons.  After exercise, horses are sprayed off every day in warm weather, but to avoid depleting the coat's natural oil, they are only shampooed once or twice a week.

Learning to show

In addition to learning to walk out impressively, Hall emphasizes teaching the horse to stand and show well. The handler teaches the yearling where to place its legs by working carefully with the horse to step forward or backward. Patience is the key in training the horse where to place its feet and how to stand. Jerking on a horse or trying to push it into place will not work. If the horse is patiently taught how to set up and stand at home, it will remember this even in the frenetic atmosphere of the sale grounds.

Actual training sessions are kept fairly short, not more than about ten minutes at a time, to keep the horse from getting sour or bored.

"The most important thing we work on all the time is getting the horse to walk and then set up," Hall said. "You want a horse that's happy to show and knows what's going on. You want to handle them enough so they enjoy going out to show. I don't like to see a horse going out to show with his ears pinned; you know he's not happy and he's resisting something."

Because horses are creatures of habit, they will continue something once they learn. At Taylor Made, handlers teach the yearlings simple cues to make it easier on them once they get to the sale grounds. With the bustle of activity and complete change of pace the yearlings will experience at the sales, it is critical that the young horses know what is expected of them.

For example, just before asking the horse to stop, the handler will turn and back up a step or two. The horse learns that it is supposed to stop, stand, and set up.

The goal is for yearlings to stand quietly but alertly and then walk out willingly upon cue from the handler. "Getting a horse to walk out and stand up—these two things are most important," Hall said.

"Without the owners, we wouldn't have these horses. It's a great responsibility and a great thrill to deal with these horses," he said. "We try to develop these yearlings to be at their maximum potential by sale time, and to get them to the sale in the way that will best represent the people who have invested in them."

Cynthia McFarland Florida-based Thoroughbred Times correspondent