Backyard Race Horse: The Training Manual, a Comprehensive Off-Track Program for Owners and Trainers [Paperback]

Janet Del Castillo (Author), Lois Schwartz (Author)

Book Description

Series: Backyard Race Horse: The Training Manual | Publication Date: January 1997

Have you ever dreamed of owning a racehorse or participating in the thrill and pageantry of the race track? Backyard Racehorse will help you make that dream come true. We have all been led to believe that the only place to train a racehorse is at the track. You can learn to do part of the training yourself in your own environment. Your role as a trainer will be to develop the personal best of each horse without breaking him in the process. Backyard Racehorse will guide you through the process, give you an honest presentation of the realities of owning a racehorse and provide an overview of what to expect when you join the wonderful world of racing.

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Prediction Publications; 3rd edition (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1884475019
• ISBN-13: 978-1884475016
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,555,170 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent informative book, May 31, 2000

By 

fblaw6 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Backyard Race Horse: The Training Manual, a Comprehensive Off-Track Program for Owners and Trainers (Paperback)

It takes an unbelieveable amount of time, effort, and money toget your racehorse across the finish line. Most racehorse owners turntheir animals and their money and unconditional control over to the racetrack trainer, usually to have the animal return to them injured, most permanently, within a 6 month period. Ms. Castillo, via this excellent book, provides an alternative in her own experience of training horses on her farm. The book is both a how to manual for the beginner and a comparative analysis for the experienced. Ms. Castillo takes you through her training, a to z in great detail. You may argue with her technique or you may question her methods, but I found the information provided invaluable and for myself inspirational to my own training efforts. Ms. Castillo relates how to overcome every obstacle an owner may face in training their own animals, and she is a welcome pioneer promoting her unique idea--instead of pouring money down the toilet with the local track trainer, a practice which ejects owners from the business usually within a couple of years, instead for those thousands and thousands of horse owners, train your own! It could hardly get any better than that.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Backyard Racehorse, January 6, 2002

By 

"salinascowgirl" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Backyard Race Horse: The Training Manual, a Comprehensive Off-Track Program for Owners and Trainers (Paperback)

This is easily one of the greatest training books ever published. It teaches how to train your racehorses with both the horses and your best interest in mind at the same time. It argues clearly and teaches why the method of not overpushing horses and making them run by masking pain with medicine is stupid and offers viable options for trainers who still want to make money. It teaches that the greatest way to make money is to take care of the horse and let it rest when it needs to be cured for injuries instead of pushing it beyond its limits to eventual permanent lameness. One of my favorite portions was about 'carrotology', which illustrated that even racehorses deserve to be loved like a pleasure horse. This book also gives helpful advise to those not only in Thoroughbred racing, but barrel racing and QH racing. One of the greatest things about this book, though, is the fact that the methods described actually worked for the author. Kudos to Janet.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mrs. DelCastillo understand horse racing and the small owner, June 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Backyard Race Horse: The Training Manual, a Comprehensive Off-Track Program for Owners and Trainers (Paperback)

I have read the book, been to her farm. Janet DelCastillo walks her talk. Everything she says she does in the book, she does at the farm and at the track. Yes, she shows you step by step how you the little owner/trainer can get your horse to the track. BRAVO!!!!!!!!!