I hope to God I'm not one of those people who go on and on about how their horse is an OTTB! I have to admit I cringe every time I hear about some novice's fabulous bargain they got at the sales, then you see it advertised two months later as 'too much for current owner/had a hard winter/has great potential for a confident rider.' I'll tell people that they raced if it's relevant, but not to try and make myself look like some great horsewoman. To be honest the vast majority of (decent) OTTB's that I've met have made cracking riding horses, but it does depend on the owner. I think the problem is that they are generally very cheap as opposed to the other breeds and this attracts novice horse people who for some reason don't realise that the actual buying of the horse is the cheapest part of owning it!.

One of the assumptions that I make is that the person at the yard/barn who knows everything generally has no clue whatsoever. They will not hesitate to tell you their opinions on everything either, and usually have a string of absolutely useless lame horses in tow, and are hesitant to have the vet out until the horse's leg is about falling off. Maybe it's just me but I've met loads of these people. They will qualify every sentence with, "Well, I've been riding for 30 years..." Except you will rarely, if ever, actually see them on a horse. Lol.