First Drive

Against the Best came recommended to us by our vet, Gary Smith.  We'd made him aware that we were looking for a replacement for Draken, as we were getting ready to retire him.  That left us with some pretty big shoes to fill and after several months of looking "Best" was gifted to me from Kyle and Robin DiBenedetto .  Best raced just three days before he came to my parent's farm in NY.  He spent a week relaxing before I was able to visit from Pittsburgh.  This is a picture of our first drive on May 21, 2011.

He was nice at the walk but we had some issues at the trot.  Mainly, he didn't know the same verbal command 'trot' as I did and by the time I figured out what worked we were moving quite briskly along.  We got the hang of it though, and by the second day Best demonstrated both a slow trot and a working trot.  He wouldn't stay in the slow trot for very long (which isn't surprising) but he also wasn't trying to run off with me. 

One thing you always have to keep in mind when driving a STB that has raced successfully is that they race at 30+ mph.  What may be a scary speed to you as a pleasure driver may just be a working gait for the horse.  Draken had a road gait (meaning he could keep the same speed for miles) of about 13 mph for years, at age 20 it's more in the 8-10 mph range but he'll never be a truly slow horse.  I haven't clocked Best yet but I would guess that he's in the same range.  For comparison, most horses average about 8 mph or less at a trot.  As long as you don't expect the race horse to become a pleasure horse overnight you shouldn't have any problems - it can actually be a lot of fun!