Racehorse to Riding Horse: Project Reboot 2026
What would you love to be doing with your off-the-track horse that you're not doing now?
Trail riding? Cantering? Going to clinics? Competing? Or simply riding your horse without feeling that something is always getting in the way?
From 19 September to 19 December 2026, Isabelle Chandler and Dr Shelley Appleton are running our 12-week Project Racehorse Reboot Challenge inside Racehorse to Riding Horse: The Off-the-Track Reboot.
It's for Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds, whether they raced recently or have been off the track for years.
Why Reboot?
Off-the-track horses don't arrive as blank slates. They come with an education, physical history and a whole collection of responses that made perfect sense in racing.
Some transfer beautifully into life as a riding horse.
Others don't.
This is where people can get stuck. Something isn't working, conflict or frustration creeps in, and before you know it you're either repeating the problem or avoiding it.
We call this practising failure.
Reboot is about working out why the system between you and your horse is failing and what to do about it.
Sometimes it's communication or training. Sometimes something physical may be interfering. Often we need to strip away the complexity and look at the foundations before we can tell.
What happens during the challenge?
You'll follow a 12-week schedule through our Racehorse Reboot exercises, starting with the foundations on the ground and progressing into ridden work.
If you're new to our program, you'll work through our 22 Essential Exercises, the small collection of skills we consider most influential in successfully transitioning racehorses into riding horses.
Throughout the challenge, Isabelle and I will hold weekly Zoom sessions, where we'll teach, answer questions and help troubleshoot what is happening with your horse.
You'll also be able to upload questions and videos to our Racehorse Reboot Community Forum for feedback and advice.
And importantly, there will be lots of you doing it together.
That's one of the things I love most about these challenges. Someone posts a problem and five other people realise they're dealing with exactly the same thing. Someone has a breakthrough and suddenly everyone wants to get outside and have another go.
It creates momentum.
And with horses, momentum is considerably more useful than another six months of thinking, I really must work on that.
Why the foundations matter
Our Reboot exercises give us somewhere useful to look when things aren't going to plan.
Does the horse understand the response? Is the communication clear? Does the response disappear when the task becomes more difficult? Can we resolve the conflict through training?
And if something that should be straightforward remains difficult or inconsistent, is there evidence that something physical may be interfering?
Rather than immediately declaring something behavioural or physical, we gather information and make better decisions.
That's particularly important with horses coming from racing.
Come and do it with us
If you're already enrolled in Racehorse to Riding Horse: The Off-the-Track Reboot, you're invited to join the challenge.
If you've been thinking about enrolling, this is an excellent time to come in because you'll have the structure of the 12-week challenge, weekly Zooms with Isabelle and me, feedback through the forum and a whole group working through the program alongside you.
So, back to the question:
What would you love to be doing with your horse that you're not doing now?
Let's see what we can change in 12 weeks.
Project Racehorse Reboot Challenge
19 September to 19 December 2026
Steps to be Part of Project Racehorse Reboot Challenge
