Andre's Life After Racing is "pretty impressive"

By Dave Di Somma, Harness News Desk 

In their Life After Racing, Kaila Murdoch and Cullens Spirit are achieving new heights together.

The son of Christian Cullen, who won four races for trainer Robert Dunn, is actually older than her owner, though not by much.

Cullens Spirit is now 18, and Murdoch is 'turning 17 this year'.

She's had "Andre" for three years, he's her first horse.

It was a try before you buy scenario.

"I knew what I was getting myself into."

Post his racing career he'd done a lot of hacking and trekking as well as events like the Cavalcade.

While "a bit bolty" at the start he's become much more settled.  

"I'd just come out of group lessons when I started riding him so he's been a good learning horse for me."

The fact that he was 16.2 hands was also a plus.

"Because I'm quite tall he was best suited for me for what I wanted to do, which is jumping"

In the early days they were in Wanaka. They are now living in Christchurch where she is a year 12 student at Hagley College and also studying agriculture.

Last year among the competitions they went to was the South Island secondary schools at the National Equestrian Centre in Christchurch

"That would have been the biggest."

While Murdoch goes trekking and has tried dressage with Andre, jumping is their clear priority.

"I wanna try and compete him at a metre, hopefully next season we will get there."

"At the beginning of the season we were getting to 90."

And she knows he is capable of that, and more.

"He's jumped 110 (1.10 metres) which is pretty impressive."

Murdoch documents their life together via social media.

"On Youtube there's very little on standardbreds so it's good for people to see that and I show people what I do with him and on Tik Tok it's mainly showjumping."

She's only just started putting up the videos in the last year or so and the number of views so far have been encouraging.

Andre may go viral yet!  

@kaila.eq - TikTok 
@Kaila.3q - YouTube