The Happiest Horse Show On Earth

As a lifelong lover of Thoroughbreds, the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover show has been on my bucket list for years. For those who are unfamiliar with it,  the Thoroughbred Makeover is an annual competition that showcases the versatility of recently retired Thoroughbreds and their potential for successful second careers. Qualified horses can be entered in up to two of ten different disciplines: eventing, dressage, ranch work, barrel racing, competitive trail, polo, show jumping, show hunters, field hunters, or freestyle.

The event brings together professional trainers, adult amateurs, young riders, breeders, racing connections, aftercare organizations, and Thoroughbred enthusiasts. The competition is an important part of the event, but it’s not the only reason to attend. Clinics, educational opportunities, vendors, demonstrations, and the chance to watch horses develop across multiple disciplines make the Makeover an unusually valuable experience for anyone interested in Thoroughbreds.

I purchased Mr. Bingo, a 6yo Thoroughbred gelding by Bolt d’Oro out of Lady Bling (Pioneerof the Nile x Kris S) from Wire 2 Wire Thoroughbreds last November after the conclusion of his racing career. A large, substantial horse with plenty of growing left to do, he’s spent the last 10 months steadily transforming from racehorse to sporthorse. He is willing, athletic, and increasingly confident, but like all of the horses at the Makeover, he’s still green and inexperienced. I have been developing him for the sport of eventing, so I opted to play on his strengths, entering him in both Eventing and Dressage.

Prior to the Makeover Bingo had competed in just a few schooling shows, had never attended an overnight horse show, and had never experienced an atmosphere remotely comparable to the Kentucky Horse Park during Makeover week. I wavered on whether or not to enter him at all, ultimately waiting until the very last day of late entries to submit our application. I had no idea how competitive we would be, but my only goal was to finish the week with confident, positive experiences to build on as we continue to move forward with his training.

We arrived at the Kentucky Horse Park on Monday afternoon ahead of the official start of the competition on Wednesday. For the Makeover they have a two-stage arrival exam that all horses must undergo before they're accepted to start the competition. The first stage consists of a team of vets that check your horse’s health paperwork, respiratory rate, heart rate, temperature, and give them a general once over. All horses must also be at least a 4 on the Henneke body condition scale in order to compete, so at that exam they assess and grade the horse's condition. After completion of that, you’re sent over to another vet team where they watch the horses move on a hard surface, checking for soundness. Once you’re cleared from the second stage, you’re officially accepted and allowed to move forward to compete.

Upon completing our arrival exam I decided to go ahead and take Bingo out for a hack to see the sights before it got too busy and electric. I put his tack on him, hopped aboard, and went for a walk up towards the Stonelea and Claiborne rings. He behaved much better than I expected, given the general hubbub, so after a little light flatwork we went back to the barns and got him settled in for the night.

Tuesday was another schooling day, and I spent the morning riding in the rings our dressage tests would be in, as well as their designated warm-up areas. Bingo was a little on his toes when we started, but once again settled in super quickly once he had work to do. I also got back on him in the afternoon and went for a hack with a friend so that Bingo could stretch his legs and relax outside of his stall.

On Wednesday we had all of our Eventing rides scheduled, with dressage in the morning and our jumping phase in the afternoon. The format for the disciplines at the Makeover is a little bit different from the standard. For Eventing you complete a dressage test (this year it was Novice Test B) and then come out later to the XC field and do a jumping phase that consists of a mix of show jumps and cross country jumps, combining the two phases into one.

It was still quite chilly when I got on Bingo to head down for dressage that morning and he was feeling very fresh and on edge. When we got to the warm-up ring I immediately went to work trying to get him to relax. It took the entirety of my warm-up time, but he finally took a deep breath and started to loosen his back.

When we went into the ring there was still a little bit of tension leftover and a few moments of green horse wiggliness, but for the most part Bingo was obedient and tried his best to stay with me. It was a fairly accurate and correct effort, and I was really happy with that. Mostly because I thought he showed a lot of maturity to come out of the barn feeling a bit like his tail was on fire, and was able to wrangle it, focus on the job he had to do, and deliver on what was asked of him. What more could you want from a horse at this stage of his training, at a huge venue like this, in such a big atmosphere? He got a gold star from me, and a 69+% from the judge.

For our jumping phase course, we had 5 show jumps in the beginning, including a 2-stride line, and then kept cantering to start the XC portion. They hold this phase on the Steeplechase Infield which is on a bit of a slope and makes for an interesting challenge with a young green OTTB. To be honest, I thought I had my work cut out for me. A few of the jumps were a little intimidating for where Bingo is at in his training, particularly the gigantic up bank that was set going uphill with a log in front of it as the third fence of the XC portion. The course really covered all the bases of eventing, with a ditch, bank, and water all represented.

I really wasn't sure what to expect from Bingo. He can still be looky and careful, and has never been in a situation remotely like this. All I really wanted was for him to make it around and finish happily, I didn't really care if we incurred issues along the way or didn’t score well.

Coming down the slope to the first jump, Bingo was not at all focused on the task at hand. He was looking at all the people, looking at the XC jumps, looking at the water… basically looking everywhere but where he was going. We got to the first vertical not exactly the straightest, and he jumped it fine, but it certainly wasn't his best possible effort. Luckily as soon as we jumped it he went "OH, we're JUMPING!!!!" and he perked his ears up. From that point it was game on. 

He jumped all the rest of the show jumps brilliantly before we charged out into the XC portion. He had some slight hesitation at the second one and the big bank, but then found his stride (no pun intended) and really began to blossom more and more over each jump. He splashed very bravely through the water, over the last jump that was decorated with lots of mulch and pumpkins, then showed a big open gallop on his way to the finish.

I figured no matter what the judges thought or how it scored, I was absolutely tickled with how good he was. Bingo started out unsure, but when I encouraged him, he trusted me, he tried to do what I asked, and he got better and better as he went. What more could you want?

Yet by the end of day 1 of the Eventing, which was about half of the competitors, Bingo and I were sitting solidly in 4th place. For those unfamiliar with the Makeover competition format, the top 10 from each division after the two days of Preliminary competition qualify to come back to compete again on Saturday in the Championships, where everybody starts on a clean slate and you're vying for prize money. I truly didn’t think we’d end up top 10 for either discipline, but after Day 1 I was starting to feel like maybe it was possible.

Thursday was, for us, Dressage day. For the Makeover, the Dressage division format includes performing USDF Training Level Test 2, followed immediately by a demo ride of your own design. You get up to 5 minutes and are required to show: halt with immobility, trot both ways, canter both ways, and walk. Other than that, what you do is up to you. Many people just come in for their demo and do Test 2 again, but others opt to change it up to try to show off their horse's strengths, especially if they have some confirmed movements that are of higher difficulty than Test 2 calls for. If you can do those well, you can earn a higher score, but if you do them badly, it can have a negative impact on your score. You have to be smart about which ones you choose to show, if any.

I had no real plan for what I was going to do for my demo portion. I figured I'd go in the ring and see what horse I had, and then make it up from there (I can feel every single Type A person cringing so hard at me through the screen right now).

By the time I got on for my rides early on Thursday afternoon, it was a balmy 80 degrees without a cloud in the sky. Much better weather for a relaxed Bingo, and that's exactly what he was. He marched down to our warm-up ring feeling great, immediately went nicely into my outside rein, and had very little tension. After a quick warm-up I decided it really wasn't going to get any better than that, so I went up to the ingate to wait my turn. 

We went in for our first test, and honestly I'm not sure I could have asked for much more. There were definitely a few things that could have been better, of course, but he did everything I asked, when I asked. The only two movements that really brought us down were the free walk and the stretchy trot circle - he's really just now starting to want to stretch down, and it takes longer than one circle or one short diagonal to get him to do it. So those two things were a bit non-existent, but otherwise it was a pretty accurate test, the geometry was good, he was very obedient, and he stayed nicely connected from leg to hand the whole time. What more do you want from a horse that was still racing a year ago?

After that we had just a couple minutes to hang out and rest before we went to the ring next door for our freestyle portion. Now that I'd ridden through Test 2, I decided to start out the same way, but add in two of the higher level movements that he's most confirmed in: the leg yield and the lengthening. I didn't want to show anything I didn't know for sure he could do really well, and those are his best two. We added in a leg yield off the quarterline both ways, and a trot lengthening across the diagonal both ways. He was really really good and stayed with me, and I felt like he did everything just about as well as he could have for where he's at in his training.

Once again I really didn't care how we scored or what place we ended up in, because Bingo had been an absolute star. The rest didn't even matter. I had seen some very nice horses with very good rides and knew it was going to end up being a competitive division this year. That said, I did think he had a better shot of making the top 10 in the dressage than he did in the eventing, because he’s generally rhythmical, obedient, and balanced.

You could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw that by the end of Day 2, the conclusion of the Preliminary competition, we had hung on to finish 8th overall in the Eventing with 2nd place amateur, and 4th overall in the dressage with 1st place amateur. We were going to the Championships for both! I could have gone home a happy girl without a single placing to my name, but to end up top 10 in both of our disciplines and at the top of the amateur rankings was just absolutely unreal. What a horse Bingo is!

Friday was an off day from competition. The people that hadn't made the top 10 were welcome to stay and participate in clinics with the various discipline judges, if they wanted to. The people that did make the top 10 had a full day of other activities, including a rider meeting, formal jogs in front of the vets and ground jury to ensure that the horses were still sound and fit to compete the following day, and arena familiarization, since many of the Championship classes were held in different arenas than the Preliminary rounds had been.

Saturday morning dawned MUCH colder, dreary, and the leftover rain from Hurricane Isias was making its way into Kentucky. I was first to go in the Dressage Championship at 9am, and then near the end of the order for the Eventing Championship, so that I would have a little bit of time between the two. I got on him 30 minutes ahead of my dressage ride time, which is more than I usually give, but I had a feeling that with the weather I might need more time.

I was absolutely correct. He was considerably more tense on Saturday morning than he'd been pretty much any other day. He's young, he's green, he's now on day 6 of a horse show standing mostly in a stall, and the weather has done a complete 180. Can you really blame him?

By the end of our warm-up time he was definitely improved, but nowhere near the super relaxed horse I'd had on Thursday. No worries, though, I just wanted to go in the ring and give him another positive experience, no matter the result. He’d proven quite enough already that week, so the Championship round was just a bonus in my eyes.

For this round we were once again allowed 5 minutes to do whatever we wanted, as long as we showed the compulsory movements, and once again I really had no firm plan going in. I figured if he was really nervous we'd just take it all the way back to something simple and easy, but if he felt ok then we'd add in some harder stuff. True to Bingo form, he went in there and he tried so hard to do his job. Was it more tense and less fluid than it had been the other days? Yes. But again there were no real bobbles, nothing even remotely disobedient, and it really was a decent enough test. He felt more and more settled as he went, so I threw in our leg yields and lengthenings again, as well as a 15m circle. 

While it wasn't as lovely as it had been on Thursday, I was incredibly pleased with him anyway. The fact that he started out our warm-up so incredibly on edge and was able to overcome that, stay with me, and go in the ring to still deliver an obedient performance... that is the quality that makes him so exciting to me for the future. He has the right mental capacity for this sport, and the rest will come with time.

Even though I felt like it wasn't our best work, we still finished 5th overall in the Championship, and retained our 1st place amateur position. Honestly, never in my wildest dreams did I even dare to imagine any of that, so I'm ecstatic to take that title home. Bingo however was less excited with the awards presentation, where we learned that ribbons on his head are a firm NO, but found that he quite enjoyed the victory gallop portion.

Unfortunately I had literally no time to bask in any feeling of success, because by the time we were done with the awards presentation and victory gallop for the Dressage Championship, the Eventing Championship was already starting.

By the time I went back to the barn and switched my tack, then walked back up to the rings, I was only a few horses out, leaving me with not much time to learn the course and warm-up.

I thought the course design was really smart. You had a vertical to start, then an oxer to vertical line, and then jumps 4a and 4b were hay bales with a rail over it, which almost gave a bit of a XC/SJ hybrid feeling to start easing you into the XC portion. Then we had a little log to a faux ditch, a slightly bigger log, then around to a definitely much bigger and much more decorated/scary looking log, to a very decorated max-height rolltop, then one more show jump to check their carefulness before we were to gallop half a lap around the ring. A fun time in all regards, and it was fair while still also having enough challenges.

When we went in the ring Bingo was definitely feeling a little bit wide-eyed, and truth be told I'd lost a bit of sleep the night before about that rolltop with all the ferns in front of it. Sometimes Bingo can be a little skeptical of things when they're out of their usual context, and I honestly had no clue what he was going to think about XC jumps being in the ring, especially with how decorated and spooky they were. Sometimes his more careful side wins out over his brave side, especially with something new and different that he's never seen before.

We picked up the canter and turned to the vertical at fence 1, and I felt him immediately focus past it, looking down the hill and out of the arena. He popped over the jump just fine, but tapped the rail with his toe and had it down. Bummer! But to his credit, we came around to the line from 2 to 3 and he went "oh my bad, I wasn't really paying attention" and got right down to business for the whole rest of the round, cantering around easily and bravely and not touching anything else.

I really really appreciated that from him. Mistakes are going to happen, but it's how a young horse reacts to them that tells you what they're really about. For him to make a mistake at the first one and then immediately lock in and focus rather than just keep making mistakes or falling apart - I loved that. It shows that he learns and he thinks, and those are incredibly important qualities.

While the knockdown at fence 1 pushed us down the order to finish 9th overall, 2nd place amateur, I really could not have been more pleased with him. I mean honestly, what a horse. Superstar doesn't even begin to cover it.

I knew that the RRP Makeover was going to be a really big ask. Bingo had never been to an away show or an overnight show. He'd only shown at familiar venues. He'd never had to travel 12 hours each way, stand in a stall for a week, and be expected to perform like this day after day. He'd never seen atmosphere at a horse show as big and crazy as this one. I had no idea how he would handle any of it. So for him to not only be just an all around very good and mature boy, but to also finish top 10 in both of our disciplines was something beyond my wildest dreams. He tried his heart out for me.

We ended up walking away from the 2026 RRP Makeover with lots of ribbons, a good chunk of prize money, and so many new friends. This experience was just incredible, I can't even fully put it into words. 

There's a reason this show is known as the Happiest Horse Show On Earth. From the riders to the horses to the sportsmanship, I was just absolutely floored all week by what I was seeing. Getting to watch all of the different disciplines was so inspiring, and I have never in my whole life had such a good, wholesome, positive experience at a horse show. What RRP is doing here is incredibly special, and if you're at all interested in Thoroughbreds, I implore you to put this event on your bucket list. If you can't swing it as a competitor, they're always in need of volunteers, and I promise you, you could learn a ton just from being there.

This was the horse show experience I didn't know I needed. Over the past couple years I admit that my enthusiasm for the sport and horse shows in general has started to wane. I don't always like the things I see happening or the direction things are headed, and it can sometimes make me question why I'm choosing to be a part of it. 

But ironically enough, spending a week at a show full of young green Thoroughbreds that are just trying their best, and the people that are just so happy to be there and so proud of their horses' efforts - it's like a breath of fresh air. I have never in my life seen so many happy tears at a horse show or felt so thoroughly supported by everyone. We all truly just wanted to see each other succeed, and that's what it should be about, at the end of the day. 

From the judges to the competitors to the volunteers and staff... it was really beautiful, and what horse sports should always feel like. For those reasons (and this truly spectacular horse who tried so hard for me), Makeover week 2026 will stick with me as one of the best weeks of my entire riding career.

Have you ever been to the Makeover? Thinking of adding it to your bucket list? Join the THQ convo and let us know in the comments below!

Sources

Amanda Chance