I read the other day that a trainer said she prefers horses off the track as opposed to others because she's never been good at teach one to run. Curious how someone would teach a horse to run? I figured it always came naturally. Is it just breezing them out? Very curious.

I believe there are multiple different training styles and methods for teaching one to run. However, there are plenty of horses that couldn't run on the track either...lol! I know breezing them is pretty common to teach younger horses to stretch out. But on the pattern is a bit of a different story! Hopefully others have more info than I do! :)

Breezing is a good start. I also breeze with another horse side by side. My mare didn't even know how to breeze. It was a process to get her to get comfortable running full speed and to practice running in both leads. 

The horse knows how to run - without a rider. We have had many horses that needed to be breezed so they could learn to run with a rider. Also, if you think about it, we kind of train them NOT to run when starting them, so they need to learn it IS ok to run with us on their back when they are ready for speed. I bet it is confusing to them when we ask for speed, they mess up on the pattern (because they don't know how to add speed and still be balanced) and then we slow them back down to reinforce correctness. Messy business, but it has to be learned, lol. 

I grew up always letting the horses run at full speed in the summer fallow field on my parent's farm. Going into adulthood, I have always tried to find safe/long straightaways to allow them to learn to run.

However, learning to run on the straightaway is not the same as learning to run on the barrel pattern (with fences, LOL). But I still like to teach them to run outside of the arena, as it's also part of my conditioning program.

With my current three, Shotgun is by far the fastest on a straightaway. My app has clocked him at a top speed of just a smidge under 42 miles per hour. (Yes, there are tears streaming out of my eyes, LOL)   I had some horses growing up .... I wonder what they would have clocked......