Racehorses in retirement: Hozier’s story
“Just to get here, you’ve already kind of won”
Video: Hozier jumps into second career
LEXINGTON, Ky. — When Hozier sustained career-ending injuries — falling over a horse that had clipped heels in front of him — the goal was that the 5-year-old horse could be rehabilitated to be “pasture sound.” The hope was that the multiple stakes-winner could comfortably live out his life eating grass on a farm. Anything above that would be a delightful bonus.
That bonus, gravy, cherry on the top played out in mid-October, 2025, when the now 7-year-old Hozier began his show career in the Retired Thoroughbred Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover, where recently retired racehorses are retained in a set period of time to compete in one of 10 disciplines at the Kentucky Horse Park.
“Just to get here, you’ve already kind of won,” said Brooke Baker, Hozier’s post-racing trainer and wife of Rodolphe Brisset, the gelding’s racetrack trainer. “It’s a very long journey.”
Hozier’s backstory: Baffert to Brisset to Brooke
The son of Pioneerof the Nile — the sire of 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah — was a $625,000 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling purchase who started his racing career with Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert for a partnership headed by SF Racing, Starlight Racing and Madaket. Hozier raced seven times for Baffert and those owners, including finishing second in Oaklawn Park’s 2021 Rebel Stakes (G2) and second by a head in Pimlico’s Sir Barton Stakes on the Preakness undercard.
While a very good horse, he wasn’t quite Baffert’s caliber and was sent to trainer Rodolphe Brisset in Kentucky. After a last-place finish in the Ohio Derby and an Ellis Park second-level allowance victory, the owners put Hozier in Fasig-Tipton Kentucky’s July Horses of Racing Age sale. Starlight partners Ted and Mary Nixon of Louisville, who’d fallen in love with Hozier, bought the horse for $200,000. And thus, Storyteller Racing was launched.
Hozier went on to win three races for Storyteller, including Churchill Downs’ off-the-turf River City Stakes and Ellis Park’s Kentucky Downs Preview Mint Millions. Able to run on dirt or turf, Hozier was part of Brisset’s stable that went to Oaklawn Park in Arkansas for the winter of 2023-24.
On Dec. 15, 2023, the rider on the horse in front of Hozier tried to go through “a hole that wasn’t big enough,” Baker said.
Video: Hozier in freestyle final
“So he clipped heels and went down,” she said. “And we were directly behind him. Had nowhere to go. Funny, if you watch the replay — it’s kind of hard to watch — he did try to jump a little bit. Just not enough time or room to do it. So he went down pretty hard. His whole hind end took a pretty big beating… He was on stall rest between 30-45 days. He just couldn’t walk. We scanned to make sure nothing was broken. He was just really deeply bruised and had trauma that he needed time to get through.
“We rehabbed for about eight months and weren’t sure how sound he’d be for riding. It was a lot of back and forth. Two steps forward, five steps back. He finally came around.
“When I started riding him, I took it very, very slow and just let him tell me when he was ready to move on.” Baker continued, “If he’d ever said ‘enough is enough,’ I would have stopped, but he didn’t. And he just got better… .Some horses can go straight from racing into this. But most of them, even mentally, just need a little break to make a difference from what they were being asked to what they’re going to be asked. Even if it’s just 30 days. The great thing about this (Makeover) competition is they do give you that extra time if you do need to rehab one. Now, you can only ride them for 10 months. I didn’t even start him until March of this year.”
Mary Nixon calls Hozier’s new life as a show horse “in some ways, it’s a miracle. We were devastated when he fell and weren’t sure if he was going to come out of it, if he was. And he did. You’d never know he had any injury at this point. The goal, eventually, is for me to get on him, and that will be another milestone for Hozier.”
Hozier starts his second career: He’s show-ring off!
At the racetrack, Baker is an assistant trainer to her husband. For the show ring, Brisset serves as Hozier’s groom.
“It’s way less pressure,” Brisset said of Hozier’s second career. “It’s fun for Brooke. It’s fun to show what a thoroughbred can do. It was way more difficult when he was running. We had to ship him to a race the day before to make sure we could school him the day before, to gallop the morning of the race, because he was getting nervous in the paddock. Brooke did a great job, and you can see the difference now. After the accident and we did the rehab, he just switched off (mentally) overnight.”
Hozier made his official show-ring debut in show jumping, the very first to compete in the qualifying round and doing well but not making the final in the popular class. The next day he competed in freestyle that, as the discipline title suggests, lets the horse’s team pick its routine to music, using whatever props are desired. Hozier the horse seemed a longshot, performing to the international hit debut single “Take Me to Church” by Irish musician Hozier (performing name for Andrew John Hozier-Byrne). But showing off his jumping capabilities, and with horse and rider dramatically dressed in black with gold bling, Hozier finished seventh to make the 10-horse final.
To rewind for a minute: As Baker was warming up Hozier for his show debut in jumping, she told the Nixons that she’d elected to go up in height on the jumps, adding, “I probably should have played it safe and done the lower position.”
“Nah,” Ted Nixon said.
“He was just jumping so well,” Baker continued. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if he had a rail (touching a jump) just because of the experience at that height. But he schooled really well.”
Hozier did touch one rail, but everyone was thrilled with his first-ever performance in the ring.
“He did everything I asked; it was a big ask,” Baker said. “He likes a little bit of a bigger jump. He’s got a big stride, so I thought he could handle it. We just never really did a course at this height. But I was tickled. He went into the fences very confident.”
A good thoroughbred retrained into a jumper, “they give you a 120 percent every time,” she said. “When they hit a rail, they really learn something from it. They really want to please, to do what you’d like them to do. That goes a long way in any discipline.”
Only a few horses in the freestyle finals attempted jumps, none higher than Hozier. It was a clean routine, very popular with the crowd. A top-three finish seemed likely, only for Hozier to be disqualified on a technicality. (With so few horses jumping in that discipline, Baker didn’t realize she had to wear a helmet. She had not worn one in the qualifying performance and nothing was said.) According to the published scores, Hozier would have finished third.
A bitter disappointment, but not with how Hozier performed.
“He seems to just love his new job,” Mary Nixon said, adding of pre-competition jitters, “It’s a different kind of nervousness. When you’re racing, you want them to win — and it goes so fast. They either win or they don’t. Here, it’s much more subtle in terms of how they evaluate their performances, and I clearly don’t know everything to watch yet. But it’s joyful — just to see him doing something he loves and doing it well.
“He worked hard for us for a while, and we wanted him to have a happy post-racing retirement life. And he is.”
With no realistic stud career, Hozier was gelded after being bought by Storyteller. The original plan is that after racing he’d become Mary Nixon’s riding horse. Baker throughout thought he might take to jumping.
“He obviously was a tremendous athlete, and he was always a barn favorite,” she said. “His personality, everybody fought to gallop him every day. He was very cool that way. So yeah, it was always a little bit in the back of my head. And he’s a tall, handsome, beautiful neck, which is kind of what we look for in a jumper. Great stride on him.”
Hozier was Baker’s second horse to take to The Makeover, the first being The Black Album, who competed in both jumping and ranching.
“Which I don’t think you could be farther apart,” she said. “We were chasing cows one day and jumping in the ring the next. That goes back to wanting to please you. They want to do right by you and will definitely try. This guy, Hozier, he had a lot of fun on the racetrack. They always called him the happiest horse out there. And I think you can tell he’s very, very happy out here. I don’t think he’d want to sit in a field doing nothing.”
Baker said she sees similarities between racehorse Hozier and show-horse Hozier. “In the show ring, as on the racetrack, he’s got a big personality,” she said. “He thought he was the man out there.”
Mary Nixon, who grew up in Lexington, has been around a variety of horses her entire life. Even so, the versatility of the off-the-track thoroughbred surprised her, she said.
“During their racing careers, they tend to be relatively high strung,”
she said. “They’ve got one job, and you just don’t realize how versatile they are. Hozier was a relatively high-strung horse; in his retirement he’s just chilled and gotten busy with his new job. It’s incredible what they can do. Now, he so far doesn’t like creeks, so we don’t know what kind of trail horse he’ll be. But he’s certainly shown he can be a show-jumper.”
What’s next: Road trip to Ohio!
Hozier will be in his second show Dec. 11-14 at the World Equestrian Center (WEC)’s Winter Classic #3 in Wilmington, Ohio, about 150 miles from Baker’s September Farm in Versailles, Ky. Hozier has been entered in two jumping classes. (Photo: Ryan, Brooke and Rodolphe’s son, with Hozier during the gelding’s racing career)
Story, photos and videos by Jennie Rees
